Not Just A Political Impact, Also Technical Impact
First, let me warn anyone using our Jewish iPhone Apps specifically the ones that use Zmanim classes such as the iPhone Siddur or Shabbat Shalom App or Mikvah App that the times may be wrong. We are working on an immediate fix and hope Apple approves it ASAP.
Now, let me explain why the times may be wrong in certain situations.
A week ago, Yahoo Maps decided to change how they label Jerusalem and split it into East & West Jerusalem. Clearly, this is a controversial move that received a lot of press and buzz, but I don't get into politics. The reason I am writing about it is because it impacted our software.
Our software used 'Jerusalem,' the name, as an indicator to make special changes to the elevation marking and candle lighting offset.
Jerusalem is about 800 meters above sea level. Sea level is one of the many variables that go into the equation of calculating Jewish times. Not only that, Jerusalem holds that the begininning of Shabbos starts 40 minutes before sunset, unlike most other places that say 18 minutes before sunset.
Since we use Yahoo's Maps API for the portion of looking up certain values, it impacted how it looked up Jerusalem and changed it to either West or East Jerusalem. Here is a screen shot:
As you can see, it is now labeled "West Jerusalem Israel," as opposed to just Jerusalem. Which caused it to enter the candle lighting offset to 18, instead of 40:
We have uploaded revisions to our apps to fix the issue and we hope this is approved by Apple in a very timely manner. Note: The Siddur update will also include iOS4 capability.
Update: It seems like Yahoo reversed this sometime today, but yet the Yahoo Maps API still has them as East and West Jerusalem. Maybe that will change also soon, but it doesn't technically matter for our purposes.
Published June 18, 2010 by:
Barry
Barry Schwartz is the CEO of RustyBrick, a New York Web service firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales. Barry is also the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and the News Editor of Search Engine Land. He is well known & respected for his expertise in the search marketing industry. Barry graduated from the City University of New York and lives with his family in the NYC region.
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5 COMMENTS
posted by Unsecured Small Business Loans on: Oct 13, 2011 06:11am
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posted by Unsecured Business Loans on: Aug 17, 2011 05:45am
Will there ever be how to report to owners the fact that the zmanim may just be from? As i pursue one at twittollower so that i learned about it, though, with your credit standing, a number of might possibly go with that programs simply because ones own only real tool designed for davening and even lict.
posted by Ygalinsky on: Jun 18, 2010 06:31pm
Is there a way to notify users that the zmanim might be off? I follow you on twitter so I learned about this, but, to your credit, many might rely on the apps as their sole resource for davening and lict
posted by Barry Schwartz on: Jun 18, 2010 06:33pm
Only our Siddur users, we don't have a way to contact the Shabbat Shalom users. We are sending out a badge alert to them now.
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