October 2021 newsletter

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is as good a reason as any for sending out the October newsletter today. Thank you for subscribing, and I hope you enjoy it. This month it is mostly about the features of the Universalis apps and programs, because sometimes people forget some of them and in any case there is always something new to discover.

August 2021 newsletter

It has been rather a quiet summer, and we have been quiet too: there was no newsletter in July. We got one or two emails expressing concern about this, but don’t worry! All is well here, as we hope it is with you.

June 2021 newsletter

Welcome to another Newsletter. It marks the 25th anniversary of Universalis!

April 2021 newsletter

Happy Easter! He is risen indeed, alleluia!

The Easter Alleluia

As the last newsletter promised, we have been trying out a new feature for Easter this year.

March 2021 newsletter

The Easter Alleluia

We are trying out a new feature for Easter this year.

February 2021 newsletter

Happy New Year! It is still all right to say this, since there hasn’t been a Universalis newsletter since before Christmas.

It has mostly been steady progress without anything spectacular, but here are some points worth reporting.

December 2020 newsletter

Happy Advent, and happy Christmas in advance!

There are no new features this month, and no new bugs, so this newsletter is devoted entirely to what so many of us are thinking about at the moment: Christmas presents.

It has been an odd year, and it will be an odd Christmas too. We may well not be seeing a lot of people we do see usually, and even Christmas shopping isn’t the same when one may not be able to get out and do it. So here are some ideas for Christmas presents from Universalis

November 2020 newsletter

This is the time of year to be thinking about books. Advent is round the corner, so if you get the annual or semi-annual e-books for the Amazon Kindle or some other e-book reader, now is the time to be getting the next one. Christmas is round the corner, so if you enjoyed last year’s “New Every Day” e-book, or gave it as a present to a friend, now is the time to do something about that.

But before getting on to these I would like to focus on the other “book thing”, because it is new this year. The Daily Books feature was added to the iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and Windows versions of Universalis a couple of months ago, and now it has come to Android as well. We were a little anxious about it to start with, as with all new features – was this a genuine benefit to everyone, or just a fun thing to program? – but we were reassured by the many emails of appreciation and gratitude. So if you haven’t tried it yet, do.

October 2020 newsletter

Today is a day to felicitate our readers in England and Wales. Saint John Henry Newman was canonised a year ago, and this year, for the first time, he is celebrated as a Feast in the English and Welsh calendars. Our apps and programs have been updated accordingly.

July 2020 newsletter

As this strange time grinds on there seems to be less and less that one can actually say about it. But it is encouraging to hear that Universalis is still being a help and a support. People are reading more, and many of them are listening more, as well. It is good to be able to help.

There is one big new feature this month. It is rather speculative. Perhaps it will fall into the category of “How could we ever have done without it?”, perhaps into the category of “Whatever is the point of it?”. Perhaps it will end up half way between these extremes, as most features do. In any case, if you are using Universalis on iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch or Windows, do give it a quick look.