Daven software for Android
4 Comments | Posted by Moishe Beshkin in Reviews
S Popper suggested me to test his application AndDaaven.
I installed it via Android Market for free. And worked with it for some time.
My review won’t be complete without comparing with other Davening application “Hebrew Prayers” by OKtm Websites.
Both applications have their own bad and good aspects, which I’d like to review here.
AndDaaven starts with a list of daily praying portions. Seems nice, but I haven’t found any reason for such a big button for Maariv. What is really good – transliteration parallel with Hebrew names.
Hebrew Prayers is much better in layout and section division.
Inner layout is also very different in both applications. AndDaaven shows names of sections about in the same font size and decoration as other text. I suggest to make it more visible for a user. Hebrew Prayers in this case has better usability. There are navigation buttons in the top of the screen, section names are bold and have font size bigger, than other text.
Settings customization is much better in AndDaaven. There is a possibility to use volume buttons for scrolling texts, select text font and size, and much more. Hebrew Prayers on the opposite has only two options to customize: switch to larger font and invert screen color.
What I want to suggest to add to the application is the following:
- add translation to other languages.
- add additional directions to the prayer section (stand or sit, read or not in the days, when Tachanun is omitted, etc.)
- add transliteration.
I think these suggestions are basic improvements, which should be made to make these application to be more usable for everyday Daven. If you have any further suggestions, feel free to write the here.
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S Popper | Oct 31, 2010 - 23 Cheshvan 5771 at 9:16 am
Thanks for the nice review. I’d like to clarify a couple of points. The button corresponding to the currently “relevant” tefilla is the one that is expanded. Right now, it uses a fairly simple heuristic, but in the future I intend for it to use the current location and zmanim calculations to accurately expand the correct button.
Thanks for the feedback about the section headings. I intend to incorporate styling that text differently when adding the feature to dynamically calculate the correct text based on the day (e.g. adding Ya’aleh V’Yavo on Rosh Chodesh/Chol Hamoed and not on other days).
As for navigation buttons on the screen, I will probably add that as an option in a future version. I personally prefer not to have them, as I find it distracts from the text of da’avening, and my main goal is to keep away any possible distractions. There still are navigation options (screen up/down, section back/forward) available via the d-pad/trackball and (optionally) the volume up/down buttons.
Clearly I need to do a better job of documentation
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