iMenorah (1.2)
Pages: 1 2
Before I get into this review please take note that I’m not Jewish and thus am not the best person to go to for a review of an app geared toward celebrating a Jewish holiday. But I got an email from the developer so I thought I’d take a look at iMenorah and see what it has to offer Jewish iPhone and iPod Touch owners.
Please also note that in this review I use “Chanukah” and not “Hanukkah.” I am not sure which is supposed to be the official or more widely accepted spelling of the word but I like the first way so I’m going with it. Don’t take offense if you prefer to spell it the other way.
Multi-Touch, Sounds and Animation
When you first start iMenorah you can light the first candle (the yellow one) by touching it on your iPhone’s screen. You can then drag that candle to each of the other blue and white candles and light them. It’s a neat way of using multi-touch to celebrate a religious holiday.
The candle animation is quite good as is the sound effect when you light another candle (it sounds like a real match does when you light it). After all of the candles are lit you can listen to a blessing sung in Hebrew (I think it’s Hebrew, as I said I’m not Jewish so I’m going by what it sounds like here).
The candles will slowly melt over time if you leave the app running. Don’t worry though; if they melt away you can always restart the app to begin again. The candles in iMenorah looked very, very pretty on my iPhone 3G.
Pages: 1 2
(3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Enjoy the blog? Feel free to leave a tip by buying me a cup of coffee. Thanks!
Thanks for the review, folks!
Mike Jutan here, co-developer of iMenorah. Just a couple comments – I hope this helps clarify a few of the more traditional aspects of iMenorah and helps explain some of our design choices!
The app sings 2 blessings in Hebrew after each night of Chanukah.
On the first night (which will be Dec 21 this year), the app sings 3 blessings automatically. These are the traditional blessings that
are always sung in this order on Chanukah. On the 1st night (when there is just 1 candle to light, plus the yellow “helper” candle)
iMenorah plays the same 2 blessings as all the other nights plus 1 special one called the “Shehechiyanu”. The number of candles displayed
is also automatic based on the current night of Chanukah. (This is determined by querying the iPhone’s current date).
There actually are 3 traditional blessings only, and a certain order they are meant to be sung in
based on the night of Chanukah – we’re automatically running the “special” 1st night one automatically, and the other 7 nights are all meant to have the same
blessings sung, in practice.
I hope that explains a couple of the reasons for our design choices! Thanks for the review!
Happy Holidays!
Mike :)
Thanks for the clarification, Mike. Very helpful.