9/4/11

Yitz Reviews the iMishna App for iPhone


Yitz reviews the iMishna app for iPhone from Crowded Road developers.

They tell us at the publisher:

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
iMishna is an amazing Torah application that weaves a comprehensive English translation. Thousands of hyperlinked footnotes have also been included for more detailed explanation. Most Masechtas have this feature and we will continue to add more with future free updates.
INTEGRATED COMMENTARIES
The commentaries of both Bartenura and Tosfos Yom Tov have been included in iMishna, using hyperlinks from the main text for easy, 1-touch access.
AUDIO LECTURES
iMishna features audio lectures for every Mishna that can be added or removed from the built-in Download Manager. Lectures are given by Rabbi Rabbi Chaim Brown.
MISHNA YOMI
There is a built-in Mishna Yomi calculator that allows you to see the day's Mishna with just one touch. Follow the cycle and complete every Mishna in just 6 years. iMishna makes the process portable and easy.
KEYWORD SEARCH
Use the built-in Hebrew keyboard to search for anything within the 1000s of pages of iMishna. The results will be highlighted for easy access.

iMishna Review by Yitz
Overall
Nice overall and easy to use. The search function works great.

Nice to haves
A help file – It would be useful to have a help file and brief tutorial. For example: It is not intuitive to use the star on the top of each page as a bookmark that can be accessed from the bookmark button on the home page. A print to PDF function would be nice too.

Hebrew Format
Easy to read fonts – can zoom in and out using the normal iPhone zoom function and expands when rotating. Nice hyperlinks to m’forshim Bartenura and Tosfos Yom Tov. You have the option to turn these off in the settings, but I am not sure why one would want to as the hyperlinks are not a intrusive and very helpful.

English Format
Easy to read fonts – can zoom in and out using the normal iPhone zoom function, but does not expand when rotating. There are no hyperlinks to the m’forshim. No credits for the translation. I am not sure where the translation comes from, There was a least one mistake that I found while reviewing e.g. Shabbat 7:4 the translation states Rabbi Jose says when it should be Rabbi Yehuda says.

Audio
The audio shiurim by Rabbi Chaim Brown are clear, concise and very helpful.

One of the nice features is the ability to download the audio file and not have to listen to them while streaming. The one drawback is that the files are only two mishnahs long.
It would be nice to have an option to listen to an entire chapter without needing to open and close multiple audio files.

I can understand the need stop the audio when closing the app to go to another, although it would be nice to have be able to see what email came in and continue to listen to the shiur.
I noticed the last word of the second mishnah gets cut out of most of the shiurim. I assume this happened as part of the editing process.

Buy the app here for $15.99.

1 comment:

Joanne said...

I don't believe it. Apple has been delaying the iPhone 5 for a long time.