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Celebrate Hanukkah, er Chanukah, er you know what I mean, with iPhone

Celebrate Hanukkah, er Chanukah, er you know what I mean, with iPhone

Religion blogger Jeff Weiss has found a story on Nextbook about some cool — by which I mean delightfully cheesy — iPhone apps for folks who want to take their menorahs into the 21st century.

The Nextbook post rates three menorah apps ranging from a simple-but-free one called Menorah for iPhone to a reasonably sophisticated model called iMenorah.

This graceful application actually does what I want an iPhone menorah app to do–and who knew I wanted one? Judging from its explanatory video, the two young developers are dorky-cute guys well-versed in the Apple way of doing things (one is wearing an “Everyone Loves a Jewish Boy” T-shirt). At $1.99, iMenorah is the priciest of the three, but hey, you get what you pay for. The on-screen menorah is more understated than its peers, and the animation is a lot better: the candles look like real candles, the flames look like real flames, and when you touch your finger to the shamash it lifts smoothly out of its holder and can easily be guided to light each candle. It’s foolproof–during each night of Hanukkah, the right number of candles automatically appears onscreen. And if you try to light the candles out of order, or from right to left (instead of the correct left to right), it won’t work. After you light the last candle, you hear the blessing sung in Hebrew (sing-along optional), and after about eight minutes, the candles burn down and extinguish themselves.

The holiday begins tonight, so act fast.

[http://techblog.dallasnews.com]

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