Bypassing app stores

Google and Amazon would like to be the only places you get apps from: Google through the Google Play Store and Amazon through the Amazon Appstore. But it isn't that easy.

Not all device manufacturers have a licence for Google Play.
Google Play refuse to sell to various countries.
In some places, Google Play refuse even to download free apps.
The Amazon Appstore is available on every Kindle Fire, but Amazon have decided to sell apps in only a handful of countries.

If you want the Catholic Calendar app, read on, and we will explain how you can download it directly from us.

If you want the Universalis app, you can get an exact equivalent by getting the Catholic Calendar app and putting a registration code into it. The The instructions for getting a registration code are here and the instructions for entering it are here. Once you have a registration code, you can also install Universalis onto your computer and on any other compatible devices you may have.

To get the app

Latest version: 2.216

Click here to download

Once the download has completed, look in your Downloads folder. You will see a file called app-Calendar-bare-release.apk, about 41 MB in size.

Tap on that file to install Catholic Calendar.

You may need to turn on the "Unknown Sources: allow installation of apps" option in the Device Administration section of your device's settings. The system should automatically ask you to do this if it is necessary.

If you want to check the integrity of the downloaded file, the hashes are as follows:

MD5: f96399b694d0672f235c5dd1d0ddf6c3
SHA1: 0842fe4aee75a5f8f21f54ba469d2bc2aeeaeae3
SHA256: 14c06a03fcdf981ee1ebdf2ddfc3c5016a30f176546b4b5a4b26437ffa35482d

Limitations

Some of the things offered in Universalis require an additional payment. One or two of the Daily Books are like this; so is much of the sung and spoken audio, most of which requires a subscription. We have no way of taking money from you directly, so these features are not available if you download directly, bypassing the app stores.

Application updates

The app stores automatically download and install updates. If you bypass the app stores, this automatic update does not happen and there is no way to find out when a new version is available. All we can suggest is to reinstall every few months to get the latest bug fixes and updates.