English iPhone Siddur Now Available

I am excited to let you know that English translation is now available as an in-app purchase (currently $8.99) for the iPhone Siddur. This has been a project we were working on for several months now and we even showed you a preview in February. I am happy to tell you that it is now available for download within your current iPhone Siddur.

The English translation is way more than just a simple translation. It is more of a conversational and guide to prayer than just simple word-for-word translation. The translation was done by Avraham Sutton and has been reviewed by many people I trust. It is currently only available for Nusach Ashkenaz (now also available for all Nusachs with the exception of Nusach Ari) and if sales for that go well, we will bring it to the additional Nusachs. This is not transliterated Hebrew to English, it is a conversational translation of Hebrew. Below I will show you how you can upgrade, some sample screen shots of the translation and the various preferences you can configure for this translation.

How To Add English to the iPhone Siddur:

You can upgrade to English for an additional fee two different ways:

(1) From the "Select Prayer" screen under Nusach Ashkenaz there is a blue button at the top right that reads "Upgrade to English." Tap it. Here is a picture:

(2) From any prayer within the Ashkenaz Nusach, when Split View is set to both English/Hebrew in Settings. If you navigate to any prayer, by default, there will be a screen that loads on the button half of the page that gives you the ability to upgrade. If you want to hide this temporarily, just hit "not now," if you want this screen to go away forever, then hit "Never show this message again." If you want to upgrade, hit "More info." Here is a screen capture:

The next screen will bring up an overview of the english upgrade. It gives you a description, author information, the price and three screen shots as samples. To upgrade, tap "Upgrade Now," to go back, hit "Not Now." Here is a screen shot:

Seconds later, assuming you have Internet active, you should be asked to confirm you want to buy this upgrade. Hit "Buy" to confirm:

A few seconds after that you should be upgraded and you should have English in your Ashkenaz iPhone Siddur.

Samples of English Siddur

Everyone who upgrades get the introduction to prayer by Avraham Sutton. The introduction is available in the "Select Prayer" screen under Nusach Ashkenaz. Here is a screen capture of the front page.

Here is a sample of the split view in portrait mode. Notice that you can increase the size of the english window by dragging the transparent english tab up or decrease the size of the english window by dragging the transparent english tab down. Here is a sampel screen:

Here is a sample of the landscape mode. There is no window size control in this mode. Do note that in both modes, font sizes can be controlled in settings.

Managing English "Split View"

Finally, if you want to just see Hebrew or just see English or see both, you can manage that under general Siddur settings. Go to Settings and then Siddur and click on the option for "Split View." In there, you can set to show both Hebrew/English, or just Hebrew or just English. Here is a screen capture of that setting:

Video Demo:

In the video below, starting at about 2 minutes and 42 seconds in, I demonstrate some of the English views. The video below should start to play at this portion of the demo:

Thank you!

I wanted to thank Avraham Sutton for partnering with us on this project. And I wanted to thank you all for being so patient with us with this new addition. We would love to hear your ideas on improving this and suggestions for new useful applications within this app.

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