SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, (December 8, 2011)—The Divine Office Catholic Ministry in partnership with Surgeworks, a Salt Lake City-based application developer and graphical interaction design firm, has announced a new app for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch based on The Original Catholic Encyclopedia.
Introducing Catholicpedia
The Catholicpedia App makes The Catholic Encyclopedia available on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch through an easy-to-use interface.
From the Divine Office Catholic Ministry, developers of the About.com “2011 Best iPhone, iPod and iPad Catholic Apps,” this beautifully crafted, simple to use Catholicpedia App is designed to present its users with the full body of Catholic teaching: the Catholic Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions.
Features highlights
Over 11,000 articles have been categorized by letter and related by tags. The App includes:
- a powerful multi-keyword search engine,
- a tags browser to drill down to specific topics and articles,
- sortable favorites,
- sharing via eMail, Facebook,
- AirPrint support,
- read in portrait or landscape,
- change font size and color scheme
The easy of use and these great features make Catholicpedia the most convenient way to access and carry in your pocket the full 15 Volumes of the Original Catholic Encyclopedia (1917).
The Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, proposes to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine. What the Church teaches and has taught; what she has done and is still doing for the highest welfare of mankind; her methods, past and present; her struggles, her triumphs, and the achievements of her members, not only for her own immediate benefit, but for the broadening and deepening of all true science, literature and art — all come within the scope of the Catholic Encyclopedia.
The Encyclopedia bears the imprimatur of the Most Reverend Archbishop under whose jurisdiction it is published. In constituting the Editors the ecclesiastical censors, he has given them a singular proof of his confidence and of his desire to facilitate the publication of the work which he has promoted most effectively by his influence and kindly co-operation.
The Encyclopedia was designed to serve the Roman Catholic Church, concentrating on information related to the Church and explaining matters from the Catholic point of view. It records the accomplishments of Catholics and others in nearly all intellectual and professional pursuits, including artists, educators, poets and scientists. While more limited in focus than other general encyclopedias, it was far broader in scope than previous efforts at comprehensive Catholic encyclopedias. It offers in-depth portrayals of historical and philosophical ideas, persons and events, from a Catholic perspective, including issues that divide Catholicism from Protestantism and other faith communities.
Citations: The Catholic Encyclopedia Original Preface (1917) and Wikipedia.
About Divine Office
The Divine Office Catholic Ministry, in partnership with Surgeworks, Inc., is the developer of several apps including Divine Office – Liturgy of the Hours, an iPhone, iPod and iPad app for the universal prayer of the Roman Catholic Church. Divine Office was selected as the recipient of The NY Times Company’s About.com Readers’ Choice Award 2011 for “The Best Catholic Website,” “The Best Catholic iPhone App,” “The Best Catholic iPad App” and “The Best Catholic Podcast.” Visit the Divine Office Website at http://divineoffice.org or view our award-winning apps on your favorite App Store:
Would love Catholicpedia for MacBook Pro, too!
I am so disappointed and your ad seems to be misleading: There is no “powerful search engine” whatsoever with this App. It can only be wonderful with that promised search engine that so far is nowhere to be found. For $9.99 without this powerful search engine, the App is far below our expectations. I hope that this search engine will be forthcoming VERY SOON, otherwise I will not promote with my parishioners and friends an app that says it has a powerful search engine when in reality, at least now, it does not have any!!!
Catholicpedia has a very powerful search engine that allows to search in the title, tags and full body of articles. The initial release required you to scroll up in order to see the search bar, just like the Contacts app, the Phone app and the Mail app that come built-in your device. The release currently available in the store has the search bar initially visible to make it trivial to access the search features of the app. Therefore this has never been misleading advertising and the usability issue has been addressed.
Congratulations team. One more great Catholic App from the awesome crew. :)
I am certainly unhappy with the search capabilities of this app as it takes about 5 minutes or more to enter a search term then at least that long to get an answer. Certainly not on par with other Surgeworks apps.
Depending on your network speed and traffic, the server search can take up to a minute. 5 minutes is unacceptable — perhaps you were in an area without a good cellular network (i.e. pre-3G)?
Anyway, please understand this is a pretty big database and the cloud service is in its initial release. Stick with us and you’ll see performances to increase with every release… the code I tested yesterday from our development version is significantly faster already. :)