Jesus Loves Me, This I Know...
For My iPhone Tells Me So!
Being a faithful Roman Catholic is hard. Mass is boring, Confession is embarrassing, and don’t even start on all those prayers, Novenas, rosaries, and refusing meat on Fridays during Lent. But now it can be cool! Now there’s a free iPhone app that will help you be a good Catholic!
It’s called Ignio, from the Latin root ignis, fire. Ignio: to cause to burst into flames. In my case, I suppose that’s about right.
One believer enthused, “It’s exactly what Pope Benedict XVI had in mind when he asked the Church to evangelize through technology.”
You use it to track your religious activity. When you pray, you tell Ignio about it. When you read the Bible, you tell Ignio about it.
As you practice your religion, Ignio’s picture of a candle flame grows and brightens. But if you miss Mass, or skip your prayers, or fail to read the Bible, the flame goes out. It can only be restored by “bumping” your iPhone against the iPhone of a believer who still has a flame in his Ignio app.
And here’s a fun bit: it reports everything you tell it to a nice central Internet database. I logged in with the password “atheist”, but apparently I have to find someone else with the app to “bump” and give me their flame.
“We’re igniting a candle of hope,” said Andres Ruzo, the 50-year-old Dallas businessman who asked some programmers to develop the app after a trip to the Vatican inspired him. “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” “Come on baby, light my fire.” (OK, he didn’t say the last bit, but I’ll bet he was thinking it.) The whole venture is funded by a non-profit foundation. The app cost $60,000 to develop, and they want to raise another $120,000 to develop the Android version, all of which seems rather pricy to me. They didn't spend it on graphics, that's for sure.
Now, I can’t see the pretty candle flame, since I’m unlikely to look for another Ignio user to “bump” iPhones (or any other parts) with. One thing kind of bugs me, though. It seems the only things you can do to keep your candle burning is pray, read your Bible, and go to church. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, giving alms to the poor, working for social justice… you know, actually brightening the world a bit - they’re not in this app. No, you just get to hide your light under an iPhone.
But, as one of the designers said, “Being a Catholic, it’s pretty awesome to have something cool that’s Catholic…”
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this app. Make a wish, and blow.
Being a faithful Roman Catholic is hard. Mass is boring, Confession is embarrassing, and don’t even start on all those prayers, Novenas, rosaries, and refusing meat on Fridays during Lent. But now it can be cool! Now there’s a free iPhone app that will help you be a good Catholic!
It’s called Ignio, from the Latin root ignis, fire. Ignio: to cause to burst into flames. In my case, I suppose that’s about right.
One believer enthused, “It’s exactly what Pope Benedict XVI had in mind when he asked the Church to evangelize through technology.”
You use it to track your religious activity. When you pray, you tell Ignio about it. When you read the Bible, you tell Ignio about it.
As you practice your religion, Ignio’s picture of a candle flame grows and brightens. But if you miss Mass, or skip your prayers, or fail to read the Bible, the flame goes out. It can only be restored by “bumping” your iPhone against the iPhone of a believer who still has a flame in his Ignio app.
And here’s a fun bit: it reports everything you tell it to a nice central Internet database. I logged in with the password “atheist”, but apparently I have to find someone else with the app to “bump” and give me their flame.
“We’re igniting a candle of hope,” said Andres Ruzo, the 50-year-old Dallas businessman who asked some programmers to develop the app after a trip to the Vatican inspired him. “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” “Come on baby, light my fire.” (OK, he didn’t say the last bit, but I’ll bet he was thinking it.) The whole venture is funded by a non-profit foundation. The app cost $60,000 to develop, and they want to raise another $120,000 to develop the Android version, all of which seems rather pricy to me. They didn't spend it on graphics, that's for sure.
Now, I can’t see the pretty candle flame, since I’m unlikely to look for another Ignio user to “bump” iPhones (or any other parts) with. One thing kind of bugs me, though. It seems the only things you can do to keep your candle burning is pray, read your Bible, and go to church. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, giving alms to the poor, working for social justice… you know, actually brightening the world a bit - they’re not in this app. No, you just get to hide your light under an iPhone.
But, as one of the designers said, “Being a Catholic, it’s pretty awesome to have something cool that’s Catholic…”
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this app. Make a wish, and blow.