The Most Exciting Version of PrayerMate Yet

Today I am super thrilled to be able to announce PrayerMate 1.4 (Edit: now called 2.0) – a real whopper of a release.

For those who don’t know, PrayerMate is an app for iOS that gives you a little helping hand with your prayer life. You enter details of the people and issues you care about, and then every day it offers you a selection to pray for. They appear as a series of index cards that you can swipe between.

Here’s a run down of what’s new in version 1.4/2.0:

Native iPad Support

You asked for it and now PrayerMate supports it: it’s now a universal app that runs on iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. All of the same features but just a little bit bigger.

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Dropbox Import/Export

You can now export your prayer points to a Dropbox account – keeping them safe as a backup in case anything goes wrong. You can then import those prayer points back later, or onto another device (e.g. your swanky new iPad that is now running PrayerMate!)

Just a few quick details: PrayerMate uses a folder in your Dropbox called “Apps/PrayerMate”. It exports in a format called “JSON”, but you could also pop plain text files in that folder (with a .txt extension) and it will allow you to import individual prayer points.

Photographs

Another much asked-for feature is the ability to attach photos to each subject. You can pick them from any album on your device, and they’ll appear at the top of each card. They can be changed or removed at any time.

Whilst you’re praying, press and hold on a card to get a list of actions. One of these will be “Edit subject”, and you can then tap the “Photo” field to choose an image.

PrayerMateSmall.png

Better Archiving

It’s now much easier to archive prayer points whilst you’re praying without resetting your session. Press and hold on a card to bring up a list of actions, choose the “Archive” action, and the card will fade out, indicating that it has now been moved out of your active list of prayer points. You’ll still be able to find it by searching the archive, but in future it won’t be presented to you as something to pray for.

Tidied Up the Feedback Page

A number of people mentioned that they found it distracting to have all of the feedback/review buttons on the final slide (the one with the blessing). I’ve acted on this by separating them out into a separate page. I’ve also removed the buttons that nobody ever used, and added an extra button to sign up to the PrayerMate email newsletter (which you should join, by the way!)

Get It Here Now

Buy it on the app store this minute – a mere £1.99 ($2.99), a real bargain for so much functionality! It really is great to pray, I hope trust that this version of PrayerMate will continue helping people do so more and more.

Features Overview

  • Intuitive index card interface lets you swipe between the day’s topics
  • Set up your own personal categories and subjects to suit the way you pray
  • Subjects can be entered manually or directly from your address book contacts – no typing necessary!
  • Attach photos to prayer points
  • Import/Export via Dropbox
  • Prayer requests can be scheduled for a certain date or day of the week, or just let PrayerMate pick topics for you
  • Optional daily alarm clock to remind you to pray (iOS 4.0 upwards)
  • PIN code feature for added privacy
  • Built-in help system