Coptic Reader app review: the official translation

Coptic Reader by Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern USA is a reference app that gives you access to the Coptic Diocese of the Southern USA's official translation of the Coptic Book of Hours (Agpeya), the Holy Pascha, the Holy Psalmody, and the three Divine Liturgies.

Introduction

Coptic Reader by Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern USA is a reference app that gives you access to the Coptic Diocese of the Southern USA's official translation of the Coptic Book of Hours (Agpeya), the Holy Pascha, the Holy Psalmody, and the three Divine Liturgies. This Coptic offline translator app was released on June 13, 2013 and is currently available in English, Coptic, and Arabic languages.

User Experience

This app offers plenty of customization features so you can choose what you want to see and what you want to hide as far as liturgical roles (Deacon, Priest, and Congregation), rubrics/comments, inaudible prayers, and languages.

Features

You will have access to a huge selection of material with this app, including the three Divine Liturgies with integrated Unction of the Sick, Service of the Deacons, Crowning, Distribution Melodies, Baptism, Antiphonary, and the readings of the entire liturgical year which includes the Synaxarion. Also featured in the app are automatic updates to the prayers that match the rites of each day.

You can even select a specific day of the year or feast to match prayers with. Go ahead and adjust the size of the font and change your graphic theme. You can also choose which archangel or saint commemorations to view all through the app in responses, hymns, doxologies, and other prayers.

In-App Purchases

There are a number of in-app purchases available which are: Praises ($4.99), Liturgies ($9.99), Melodies and Distribution ($4.99), Antiphonary ($4.99), Crowning Prayers ($1.99), Baptism ($1.99), and Unction of the Sick ($1.99).

Update Info

There are no updates available at this time.

Customer Ratings and Feedback Comments

There are currently 11 customer ratings with an average rating of four and a half out of five stars. Users like that rather than searching through a number of books they can find all the prayers in one convenient location. The user interface is simple and clean. One user even called it the "Best Coptic app out there."

Personal Comments by Reviewer

I have to agree with users: this is a very handy and quick way to access several books. You save yourself a lot of time and energy by just having everything at your fingertips in this app. I enjoyed the customization features, the ability to adjust the font size to make it easy to read, the wide array of prayers, and the fact that you could select prayers that matched a specific day. This app felt very well put together and complete where the content was concerned.

As far as ease of use, this one was kept very basic and simple. It’s clear the focus was on the content rather than a sleek and fancy looking user interface design. I'm not saying this design isn’t pleasing; it’s just basic in its amount of features and functions. It has to be one of the best Coptic translating apps out there. 

Pros and Cons

Pros

• A complete Coptic reader offering users a large selection of prayers in one location
• Customization features

Cons

• This app requires many in-app purchases if you wish to access the full version

For: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), and iPad with iOS 6.0 or later. Coptic Reader is optimized for iPhone 5.