Hallow: The App for Catholic Meditation and Prayer for the Holy Week

The Holy Week begins tomorrow, and many of us Catholic Filipinos will observe the practices we usually do during this period.  For some, this is an excellent time to meditate on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.  While some Filipinos do the “pabasa,” reading of the passion narrative through song, not all of us can do it. We would just observe through the recitation of the Way of the Cross, and praying of the rosary, and others.  Now, there's a new app that could help us in our meditation and prayer life named Hallow.

Hallow is a popular Catholic meditation and prayer app that offers audio-based guided meditations, daily reflections, and Bible-based content to help users deepen their spiritual practice.  The app has gained popularity among Christians looking to incorporate meditation into their daily lives.

One thing that sets Hallow apart is the quality of its content. The app offers a wide range of meditations and reflections based on scripture and the teachings of the Catholic Church and designed to meet the needs of users with different spiritual backgrounds and preferences. Aside from guided meditations, it includes audio recordings of various prayers, such as the Rosary, Angelus, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The app also provides prayer challenges, which focus on specific themes and are usually time-bound. The current challenge is the #Pray40 Challenge for Lent. If you want to test your knowledge, there's daily trivia on the Catholic faith.

I downloaded the app from the AppStore and now regularly listen to the Daily Reflections on the day’s Gospel with Jeff Cavins and Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus Christ on the TV series “The Chosen.”  I listen to the Sunday Sermons of Bishop Barron, the founder of the Catholic organization Word on Fire. I started listening to the Catechism in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz, which started early this year.  

I also like the music section, which contains chants, and contemporary and traditional music. Last Christmas season, the app featured the entire album of Christmas songs from Andre Bocelli and his family. They recently added a lo-fi playlist that you could play while getting ready in the morning, studying, or working. 

With over 400,000 Filipino users across the globe, Hallow started offering meditations and prayers in Filipino in October last year. Yes, you can pray the rosary, Divine Mercy prayer, selected novenas and other prayers in Tagalog. I follow Fr. Franz Dizon's daily reflection on the gospel in Pagninilay Ngayon. There is also a section on the life of the saints named "Buhay ng Mga Banal."  

Many users praise the Hallow app for helping them deepen their faith and improve their prayer life. The app's user-friendly interface is easy to navigate, making it easy for users to find the content they want. The app also offers a community feature that allows users to connect with other members and share their spiritual journey.  

I have just one issue with this app, and that is the voice and delivery of some of the prayer guides. I know that prayer should be meditative, but the guides speak so slowly that some of the prayers take longer to finish than usual. 

Hallow is also affordable. The app offers a 14-day free trial period, after which users can choose to subscribe to the premium version of the app. The premium version gives users access to more meditations and features but is still affordable compared to other meditation apps on the market. At about PhP600 a month, the subscription is worth the cost.

Overall, the Hallow app is an excellent tool for Christians who want to deepen their spiritual practice through meditation and prayer.  The app's high-quality content, user-friendly interface, and affordability make it popular among users.

Images from Hallow

PH Finally Gets its iTunes Store

Apple announced this week the launch of iTunes in several Asian countries including the Philippines.  This is good news for us who have an iOS device or two as we now have access to songs, apps and movies that were previously unavailable to us.  These include music from local artists, of course.  Not only that, we can now also shop for books under the iBookstore.

It is only about time that we have our own iTunes Store.  Before this, I can only populate my iPod through ripping my CD.  The only way I can download music and books from iTunes is to ask my sister to get me an iTunes Music Store prepaid card or buy one from an online seller at a higher price.  Now, I can use my local credit card to gain access to all of the goods.

Moreover, Asia is one of the fastest growing markets for Apple products.  Since many of their gadgets now come sans optical drives, Apple users here have no option but to download iOS and Mac OSX software from iTunes or the Appstore.  

iTunes music store has been online since 2003 and after almost ten years, it's here.  Well, better late than never.  Welcome to the Philippines iTunes!

Apple Rolls Out Lion, along with new MacBook Air and Mac Mini

Apple today released Mac OS X Lion their most advanced operating system.  It's now available on the Mac AppStore and I am currently downloading this.  It says that my download will be finished in 8 hours! Ugh... thanks to my DSL connection.

And it's not only Lion that Apple rolled out today but also a refresh of MacBook Air and Mac Mini.  Both machines come pre-loaded with Lion and now sport the latest Thunderbolt technology which promises connections speed of up to 20 times faster than that of USB 2.0. With this new technology, you can connect up to six devices to your Mac. 

The new Mac Mini and the MacBook Air now sport the dual Intel Core i5 processors.  This makes this new generation 2 times faster than the last.  It will prove very helpful when using processor intensive applications.

With release of the new generation MacBook Air, Apple chose to "kill" the white plastic MacBook.  They also decided to make the entry-level 11 inch MacBook Air more affordable, at USD999 on the US Online Store or PhP49, 999 from the Apple Philippines Online Store.

from apple.com

I am looking closer at the MacMini though, priced at PhP30,990 on the Apple Philippines online store (with 3-day free shipping).  In this new machine, storage will not be a problem since they decided to bump up the hard drive to a hefty 500GB.  So we can stock our pictures, videos and music in the Mini.  Should this be not enough for your needs, you can further upgrade your hard drive to 750GB without affecting the speed of your machine.

Oh, and just like in the previous generation, upgrading your RAM is a cinch with the removable bottom panel.  You can upgrade your memory to up to 8GB! 

Apple decided to remove the superdrive from the MacMini.  Yup, just like with the MacBook Air, the optical drive is now an option with this new generation.   I wonder if they will also do this with the other desktops like the iMac or the MacPro.  Perhaps the decision was reached because  you can now download from the AppStore the applications you want to install on your Mac. You can back up your files in the iCloud or in an external drive that has either USB or Thunderbolt connection.  Movies and music are also available and downloadable from iTunes.  In other words, Apple does not see the need for an optical drive anymore so they dispensed with it in the new MacMini.

Why I've Been Away

Whew... It's already February and I still have only one post for the year.  So many things have happened already and I've been silent.  Let's see why.

My sister gave me a Magnavox Blu Ray player last Christmas and I've been very busy with it.  The first Blu Ray Disc I bought was the Disney Pixar movie UP (4 disc set) and can't get over it.  I love this movie and all those added features.  The first disc contained the movie and some bonus features, including two short features.  The second contained documentaries about the making of the film.  The third is a DVD version of the film.  The fourth disc enabled me to download a digital copy of the movie through the iTunes store so now I have the movie in my iPod Touch and iPad.  Blu Ray is a thingamagig! The clarity of the image and the sound are superb that you wonder what you've been missing all these years.  By the way, to get the maximum effect, you must also have a good HD TV and of course, a HDMI cable.

Another gadget I've been busy with the last two months is my iPod Touch 4th generation.  Although I already have an iPad, I was enticed to get this baby because of FaceTime! I can't get over this app because now, not only can I talk with my sisters, I can even see them. One time, I was even speaking to my sister and her kids while they were having dinner.  It as almost like being there with them.  I am really excited what technology will come out this year.  There are already talks about the second generation iPad which will also have both front and back facing cameras.  Does this mean that we'll be able to do FaceTime on the iPad soon? I can't wait!

Favorite Apps

In one of our discussions, one of my fellow Mac fans asked us what iPad or iPhone Apps are our favorites and can't live without.  I told him I have a number of favorite apps but not necessarily I can't live without.  I downloaded some apps from the Apps Store to my iPad and use some of them more often than the others.

One of these is Pulse, a news aggregator developed by two Stanford students.  It combines the convenience of RSS feeds with the engaging interface of a web browser.  What I like about this app is that I can choose which news provider to subscribe to and place them in a grid.  I can access them anytime I want and get updated on current and tech news without leaving the app.

For making on the spot reports and other documents, I use Pages.  It is almost the same as the desktop version except that when sent through email, you will have to convert your work into a document that Pages could read.  Otherwise, it's the only app I need to make documents.

I use iBooks and Kindle for iPad alternately to read my e-books because I have books on both formats.  My only issue about reading on an iPad is eyestrain.  Yes, even with the adjustable brightness, I cannot read as much as I would with paper book.  This is one reason why I am contemplating on buying a Kindle.

Another favorite is Magic Piano. I can actually make music with this app even if I don't know how to play the instrument.  All I did was turn on one of it's auto modes and voila! I can play music from it's songbook by just following the falling dots on the screen.

If I have time to waste, which is very seldom, I play games on my iPad.  The big screen on this baby could sometimes make me waste more time than I should.

There's Angry Birds, the insanely addicting game that involves slinging birds to beat the green pigs that stole their eggs.  The game is so wicked because its levels become more and more challenging as you progress.

Also wicked is Zynga's Scramble. It looks easy because you only need to make words from random letters on a 4x4 board.  Try playing the online mode and compete with other players around the globe. The next thing you knew, hours have passed and the deadline you're trying to meet has come closer.

These are the apps that I use most of the time.  There are others on my iPad that are also worth mentioning and I would discuss on another post.