App Profile: Pray As You Go

jcwords

Rating: 5/5

I have used Pray as You Go as part of my morning prayers for a couple of years, and I love it. The musical introduction and the contemplative reading and meditation on scripture encourage focus and listening as part of prayer, and that has been very helpful, especially as I was raised in a religious tradition that saw prayer mainly as a way of talking to God and telling him what you think should be done. From reading scripture, I knew that wasn’t all there was to prayer, so I turned to apps such as this one, Divine Office, and the Centering Prayer app in order to learn and grow. As the range of comments indicate, this app is scripture-focused and can be used by people from many faith backgrounds. The app is also beautiful. I enjoy the various scenic backgrounds that have shown up in this year’s update, especially those that depict light, a long view, or nature. It would be nice to be able to mark favorites so that they would show up more often. I don’t usually follow along with the text, but like to refer to it occasionally, though it has recently gotten a bit too light for me to easily see. I am grateful to the Jesuits for their work.

jmac670

Rating: 2/5

It’s a great app overall. I’m grateful for the daily devotional. But since the redesign, it can be frustrating. Whenever I open the app, it’s very slow to load. I think I need to click on the button on the first screen to proceed. We shouldn’t be taking any action in order to get to the home screen. But maybe I’m misunderstanding the process and it just takes a long time to get to the home screen. Sometimes when I open the app, it loads yesterday’s date and I cannot get to today’s devotion, even when I open the calendar and select the current date. If I select today’s date, it will result in showing today’s date, but I can’t get the today’s devotion to play. The workaround is to shut down the app and reopen it. Then it works. Finally, the design isn’t user friendly. There are a lot of features, which is great, but the user experience can use some improvement. I’m a product manager and work with UX designers to build digital products. I don’t mean to sound picky. I’m just used working with a team to build out products that make sense to end users. It looks like y’all didn’t do enough user testing to work out all of the major bugs before releasing the latest design. I’m looking at your most recent reviews, I’m not alone in the frustration. Thanks for listening!

SouthAfricaIsNotAmused

Rating: 5/5

Years ago, I found the Pray As You Go app and I dove right in to discover the thoughtfully-produced music, reading, and meditations format. It’s all wonderful and has inspired me to explore my faith and spiritual life more deeply. I love hearing the variety of beautiful British voices and especially love the more traditional music and ancient chants. Also, years later, it must have been when I got a new phone—I simply went to the website to access the content because perhaps the app didn’t transfer over or something. The website is very easy to use so I never downloaded the app again—not because I detected any problems, but because the website is so easy to use on a mobile phone. I thought to myself, why do the app, when it’s all here on the website? Now, I’m reading the reviews and see that some of them address the app technology issues. I would suggest that if the app is troublesome, simply go to the website and (keep calm) and carry on using that platform instead. Man does not have to live on apps alone. 🙏