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Sure my iPhone is OK I guess, and I’m glad it can be used as a browser, an email client, an iPod, and a phone, but man, there’s something missing.

I just wish I could use it as a handbell with a humongous choice of bells.

This sentiment is shared by scores of people around the globe; if you are one of them, then Dingaling might be for you.

With Dingaling, you can hold your iPhone like a handbell and ring, ring, ring. It uses a realistic physics model to simulate the action of an actual handbell. It is this physics model that sets Dingaling apart. Sure, it’s mainly meant to be fun; but it’s also meant to feel at least a little bit realistic.

Like my bell choir teacher taught me years ago, don’t merely shake the bells; you have to ring ’em.

It might be theoretically possible to play with Dingaling without a half-embarrassed goofy smile on your face, but so far I haven’t seen that yet! All I’ve seen is self-consciously crazy grins whenever someone is using this application.

You can pick from dozens of bell sounds, with more being added periodically.

Dingaling can be a cost-effective alternative to a handbell choir. If your group all has iPhones, and wants to play handbells, but cannot afford handbells, just grab Dingaling and voilà, you’re all set.

I got into iPhone development looking for a way to leverage the iPhone’s unique capabilities, especially the accelerometer. Although other iPhone applications use the accelerometer (especially games), it is still a rarity to find an iPhone application that uses a realistic physics model that’s an intrinsic part of the application. Some games detect tilting to help steer, and a number of applications detect shaking or jiggling, but building a small application around realistically using the iPhone’s accelerometer has not been done much. (As an aside, I would love to see more iPhone applications using the accelerometer realistically.) A handbell “simulator” is just the right combination of wrapping something tightly around the capabilities of the iPhone accelerometer and having an application that is fun and a little goofy.

There were some simplifications necessary, and as time moves on I suspect that additional refinements will be added to Dingaling’s physics engine. The biggest drawback to Dingaling is that an actual handbell lets you feel the clapper position: there is an actual mass in motion. There is no way to simulate this with a solid-state device such as an iPhone — the visual cues of the clapper’s motion are all you have to go on.

An actual handbell will ring on the rebound — that is, it may bounce and ring on the “back” side of the bell. When holding a real handbell, the balance of the bell/clapper combination will let you dynamically react in time to prevent an unwanted rebound ring. Since the iPhone does not have that internal mass distribution, Dingaling’s physics engine artificially eliminates the rebound ring. (That is why the clapper visually fades out when it approaches the “back” of the bell.)

This has the unwanted side effect of making it impossible to trill or shake a note, but on balance it was worth it to eliminate rebounds.

I created this application with a subtext of silliness and joy. Being in a handbell choir when I was younger gave me some appreciation for handbells in general, and the paucity of handbell applications for the iPhone left a niche to be filled. The name “Dingaling” is meant to express the goofy celebratory joie de vivre of playing a handbell — with a realistic handbell-playing motion — on a very unhandbell-like device.

I truly hope everyone who tries Dingaling can find the same silly goofy fun that I have found creating and using it.