Blogging My Life...We promised to keep developing the iPhone Siddur despite the slow post dates to the iTunes App Store. So let me show off the new "Smart Siddur" feature for the iPhone.
The Smart Siddur basically will show you the texts or prayers you need to see for that day, and skip the rest. So if it is Rosh Chodesh (new month), you will see those prayers. If it is Monday or Thursday, we will show you the torah reading prayers plus the actual parsha (torah text). Let me take you through it step by step.
(1) Smart Siddur by default is set to on, in the settings:
(2) If you open up Shemona Esri, you will see it automatically knows it is the summer months and shows me the summer portion:
This is done throughout the whole siddur.
(3) Also, we put in the actual torah reading selection for the weekday. Here is a picture, as if it was tomorrow (Thursday):
(4) As a side note, we also added Parsha info to the Luach:
Now what? Well, we test it. There are tons of locations that require testing and tons of scenarios. So we made a trick to change the date and test it that way. Once we are okay with it (I am sure there will be mistakes) we will lock it down to the real date, test it again and then release it to Apple.
So, version info time... 1.0 is on the Apple Store, 1.5 was submitted already and it should be approved soon (I hope by tomorrow). We will likely release a bug fix release, call it 1.6, before releasing the Smart Siddur version. Let's call Smart Siddur, version 2.0.
I am personally excited to use this tomorrow.
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Comments
A minor visual bug in the above screenshot of the luach screen. Note that the Hebrew year has what appears to be a UTF-8 Gershayim while the tet"vav (15th) has what appears to be a double quote character. Also, do you show a Geresh at the end of single letter days? Note the way that the date is formatted at myZmanim.com
Posted by: Digg | August 13, 2008 8:32 PM
See Wikipedia for details on on formatting Hebrew numbers/dates.
Posted by: Digg | August 13, 2008 9:45 PM
Thanks Digg, we will look into that.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | August 13, 2008 9:47 PM
will smart siddur be a free update to those of us who purhased siddur?
Posted by: mo | August 13, 2008 10:00 PM
Yes, that is the plan.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | August 13, 2008 10:02 PM
thanks....hope to see the initial 1.5 update tommorow!
Posted by: mo | August 13, 2008 10:07 PM
The smart siddur (or is it the auto siddur?) is great, but (1) if today is Rosh Hodesh, a visual highlight (yellow background?) should show under yaale veyavo. I would to this for the first week or so after the change to Mashiv Haruah Umorid Hegeshem, but remove the highlight after that. In other words, anything unusual/changed should be brought to attention. (2) Please consider some icon to expand hidden parts such as yaale veyavo when not rosh hodesh, but show it if the icon is pressed. The smart siddur shouldn't disallow total access to see these parts. The same for the Monday/Thursday kriat hatora, while the "smart" thing to do is show only this week's portion, a way should be made available to browse the other parts. (3) Keep the baal koreh in mind and show the taamim (trop?) in the kriat htora parts. Is this possible? Many use ta'amim for Kriat shema (look at sidurim) so in addition to the weekly tora portion, the Kriat shema should have this as well. (4) What is the "Hebrew System" option? (5) can't the GPS detect the "in Israel" option? Even if it a rough rectangle surrounding Israel (I don't think that a polygon following the exact boarders would be easy). Since Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the sea are the boarders, there would be no real issue if these were considered "In Israel" for the smart Siddur. (6) The font in use is not ideal (to put it mildly). This has nothing to do with the font size (that can be easily zoomed). Can the font face be made a selectable option (or is teh siddur an image and not text?). The font for the calendar portion looks nice, but might not be possible to use with nikkud. Why not allow the font to be a setting and make everyone happy? I hope that all these suggestions do not bother you. Do you have a consolidated list of sugestions?
Posted by: Digg | August 13, 2008 10:14 PM
(7) In Israel in Ashkenaz show Morid hatal, but not out of Israel. (8) in Arvit (maariv) show baruh Hashem Leolam when out of Israel, but hide it in Israel. (9) The date of the rain prayers differ from Israel and the rest of the world. See Wikipedia Prayers for rain. (10) Monthly grid view for the calendar (showing both the Hebrew letter for the Jewish date and the number in the Gregorian month. (11) Kriat hatora for hol hamoed (can this differ in Israel over the rest of the world? (12) The weekly kriat hatora can differ in Israel and the rest of th world if shmini azteret is on a Friday (the following shabat is Berashit in israel, but still simhat tora in the rest of the world. It takes a few month for a double parsha to synchronize Israel and the rest of the world. (13) Can I suggest more?
Posted by: Digg | August 13, 2008 10:26 PM
Digg,
Do check out http://groups.google.com/group/iphone-siddur
(1) Added to list
(2) There is an option to turn of Smart Siddur
(3) Cannot do this
(4) It is for those who have used jailbreak to get the hebrew keyboard (hacked iphones)
(5) Will add to list
(6) Don't think we can use more than arial or times as fonts.
(7) Adding to list
(8) Adding to list
(9) I believe this is done
(10) Same as 1
(11) I believe this is done, we need to test more
(12) Yes, done.
(13) Sure, but do so in the Google Group discussions. I will then update the pages to keep the list clean.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | August 14, 2008 10:22 AM
can you please put the magen avraham ini zmanim for the sepfaradim. most sefaradim follow magen avraham in lastest amida and shema, etc.
thank you
Posted by: jack | August 14, 2008 3:51 PM
Jack,
There are multiple ways to calculate the Magen Avraham's zman Krias Shema. Is there any specific one that you refer to? Check out the Zmanim Calendar Generator for a list of the more common ones. The most common one used in calendars uses a fixed 72 minutes for Alos, but this is the zman that has almost no source besides a Belz/Shinov (Hassidic) custom, not something that would likely be of interest to Sfaradim.
Posted by: KosherJava | August 14, 2008 4:05 PM