Shabbat Alarm for iFolks

If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you fall into the group of people I think of as iFolks.  

You probably got your iDevice for one particular purpose... but have since discovered a treasure trove of other iFunctions it has to offer to enhance your life.

When I first started using my iPad, I mostly availed myself of its web surfing, ebook and ezine capabilities.  But over time it has become my default blogging, movie watching, date book keeping, emailing, online banking, and nearly everything else, tool.

I check the local weather forecast on it before I go to bed, and it wakes me up in the morning to anything in my iTunes library.

I use it as a siddur (prayer book) during the week, and have the entire Tanach (Jewish bible) and Talmud available, quite literally at my fingertips.

Pretty much the only time I don't use the iPad is on Shabbat and holidays.

Well, now even that isn't quite true anymore.  You see, I prefer going to the early services on Shabbat.  But I have trouble waking up on time.

Turns out, there's an app for that too!

An app developer called Ary's Software Garden has a fantastic, simple to use app called Shabbat Alarm.  

Think about it... What's the big problem with most electric/electronic alarms?  Right, you can't turn them off on Shabbat.  So even if you are lucky enough to find an alarm that will turn off by itself, eventually.  By the time it shuts itself off, you've woken everyone else in the house.

With Shabbat Alarm, you can set the alarm to go off for as little as one or two seconds, after which it will stop by itself.  Need a snooze to make sure you're up?  No problem.  Set a second alarm to go off a few minutes after the first... again, for just a second or two.

You can set as many alarms as you want.  And the best part is that you can set a different set of alarms for successive days (think of the different alarm requirements for a three day Yom tov).  You can be sure to get up in the morning for minyan... and also be confident you won't oversleep your afternoon shluf.

Just to be clear, I have no interest in this app (financial or otherwise), and have already paid full price for it in the app store (I think it was like 2 bucks).  So if the developers saw this post they couldn't compensate me even if they wanted to.

No, I'm telling you about this because your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is no longer just a weekday wonder... it can now enhance your life, even on Shabbat!

Don't thank me... I'm a giver!