Christmas Music Available

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(released 12/05/18) – Did you know that WELS has an internet radio station? In the WELS App, go to the Sections page by tapping “Sections” in the bottom menu bar, then look for the “Radio” section and then “Christmas Music.” This will open a new window to the WELS “traditional” radio station which is now playing all kinds of season favorites through the end of January. Look for Lenten & Easter music when that season comes as well. All the music on the station is from WELS musicians.

If you are interested in finding the same station on your computer, you can open your favorite browser and go to http://wels.net/news-media/radio/christmas-radio/

As always, thanks for using the app, and share with a friend. Simply tell them to visit https://wels.app.  May God bless your use of His Word!

Audio rewind and campus ministry search

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(released 10/08/18) – The “WELS App” was updated last week with a couple of new features! For those of you who like to play the audio for Daily Devotion, Bible Readings, Military or Early Childhood devotions on their iPhones and iPads, we’ve now given you an option to rewind or fast forward the audio in 15 second increments. This will allow you to “go back” if you missed something or wanted to hear it again.

The second feature update has to do with the Online Yearbook, which is available through the App, but also at https://yearbook.wels.net. You can now filter your searches to look for churches who offer campus ministries. If you or your son or daughter is looking for what churches serve your campus of choice, just check the Church (with Campus Ministry) box in the filters section. You can also go directly to a campus ministry search page at: https://yearbook.wels.net/cmsearch.

As always, thanks for using the app, and share with a friend. Simply tell them to visit https://wels.app.  May God bless your use of His Word!

Feature Updates to WELS App

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(released 08/17/18) – The refreshed “WELS App” has been available for a few months now. We pray you have been enjoying the new design, additional content and greater reliability it brings. You may have noticed that the latest release brought with it an improvement to the readability of the text. A number of you had suggested that the main paragraph font was a little too small and faint. As a result we have made the text a little bigger and darker. Hopefully this will allow everybody to read the content without any issue. Feel free to let us know how you feel about the change.

We’d also like to encourage you to let us know about any other features you’d like to see added. Fall is a time we have set aside for rolling out enhancements, so let us know what you think might be helpful to you. One thing to look for is a notifications feature. You can “subscribe” to receive alerts, news, and other realtime items of interests. Watch for that in the coming months.

As always, thanks for using the app, and share with a friend. Simply tell them to visit https://wels.app.  May God bless your use of His Word!

IMPORTANT UPDATE! WELS Mobile is being retired

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On July 17th, the WELS Mobile app will be replaced with the “WELS App” found at https://wels.app. Versions of WELS Mobile in all app stores (Apple, Google and Android) are being retired in place of the more up-to-date WELS App, a web app that can be “installed” on your device in much the same way a traditional app can be. Please consider deleting WELS Mobile from your device now and visit https://wels.app in your mobile browser for a better experience, more up-to-date content and more features. Come Tuesday, July 17, the WELS Mobile app will no longer function. Switch today!!!

The new WELS App is here!

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(released 05/11/18) – Today we are announcing the launch of a brand new version of WELS Mobile! There are a number of changes, including the name. We’ve dropped the “mobile”, so now it’s just called the WELS App. It also no longer can be found in the Apple App or Google Play stores. The versions there are being retired. In it’s place, the WELS App is available at https://wels.app. It is mobile friendly and is technically called a “progressive web app” or PWA. Without getting too technical, PWAs give you all the features of a store app, but get updated right away and offer similar experiences on any device. They get progressively better as your device (and it’s browser) get more capabilities. We are excited about offering great new features in the WELS App like Favorites, Sharing, and more great WELS Content. In the very near future there will be bookmarks, notifications, offline access, and availability as an app on the Windows Store. We hope you like it!

Some have asked “why the change?” WELS Mobile seemed to work just fine for me. There were two major reasons to offer the PWA version:

  1. The synod has limited technical resources to maintain mobile applications that are offered in the traditional Apple/Google app stores. It requires deep technical knowledge of both platforms and testing on many, many different phones. We spent more time trying to take care of bugs, than offering new features. Maintaining only one app will allow us to push out new features much more quickly.
  2. A second benefit is that PWAs can run safely and consistently on many more devices/platforms. Because they are simply websites, apps like the WELS App can run on older and newer devices on many different systems (Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.). This will allow more people to take advantage of great WELS content.

Thanks for giving the WELS App a try. Tell others. Enjoy the experience and the beautiful messages it carries.