If you’re looking for a fun little holiday-themed app for the new Apple TV to enjoy with the kids, Holiday Bells for TV might just be what you’re looking for. The app offers users “a fun and interactive Christmas musical experience” by allowing anyone to play their favorite holiday tunes using onscreen handbells and the Siri Remote.
Holiday Bells features 19 classic holiday tunes:
- 12 Days of Christmas
- Angels We Have Heard On High
- Auld Lang Syne
- Away In A Manger
- Deck The Halls
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
- Good King Wenceslas
- I Saw Three Ships
- Jingle Bells
- Joy To The World
- O Holy Night
- Oh Christmas Tree
- Oh Come All Ye Faithful
- Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem
- Silent Night
- The First Noel
- Up On The Housetop
- We Three Kings Of Orient Are
- We Wish You A Merry Christmas
To play a song, just scroll through the app’s song list and select a carol to play. From there, you simply shake the remote to play the bells. If you’re not up to shaking your remote, hitting the PLAY button on the Siri Remote will automatically play the song. If you want to hear all 19 songs, just hit PLAY while on the Song List screen, and the app will auto-play all of the songs in the list in a random order.
Holiday Bells for TV features new, professionally recorded handbell sounds. “I wanted to update the bells so they would sound good on the larger speakers of a TV or home audio system,” says app developer Kira Hamilton. “I met with Keith Chuvala of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, and we recorded the new bell sounds using the Gloria Dei Celebration Ringers’ handbell set. So the sounds you hear in Holiday Bells for TV are real handbells.”
Holiday Bells for TV is available for $2.99 from the Apple TV App Store.
