Holiday Bells vs TouchBells
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Holiday Bells
Create and play Christmas music with realistic handbell sounds. Features include interactive song playback with visual cues, a collection of 20 holiday tunes, and customizable home screen widgets. Enhance your messages with festive stickers.
- Realistic handbell sounds
- Interactive song playback
- 20 Christmas songs
- Home screen widgets
- Festive stickers
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Play Christmas songs on the handbells with Holiday Bells! The beautiful bell sounds are real handbells! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Jingle Bells: Shake the phone to ring the bells. Handbell: Tap to ring. Tap on the clef to change pitch. Handbell Set: 15 handbells. Tap on the bells to play your favorite holiday songs! Songs: 20 Christmas songs, with favorites like "Jingle Bells", "Away in a Manger", "Joy to the World", and more. Scroll the songs list to see them all. Choose a song, then follow the snowflakes to tap along, or press the Auto-Play button to have the app play the song for you! Stickers: Add some holiday cheer to your text messages! Holiday Bells stickers have bells, stars, animated music notes, a music sheet and songbook, an animated candle with flickering flame, a Christmas wreath, birds (cedar waxwing, cardinal, and peace dove), and a red poinsettia. All of the stickers are original hand-drawn artwork by artist and app developer Kira Matrejek. Widgets: New in iOS14, add festive holiday widgets to your home screen! Holiday Bells has small, medium and large size widgets. Widgets can display the date, the days until Christmas, or holiday song lyrics, and there are several seasonal backgrounds to choose from. Merry Christmas! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
TouchBells
This app is a virtual carillon instrument for iPad, offering xylophone, vibraphone, and tubular bell sounds. Users can play freely, record and share songs, and learn to play through a teach mode. It's designed for musical exploration and early childhood education.
- Virtual carillon instrument
- Xylophone, Vibraphone, Tubular Bells sounds
- Song recording and playback
- Song sharing with other users
- Teach mode for learning songs
- Adjustable stereo effect
- Tunable instrument pitch
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TouchBells is an easy and fun to use carillon music instrument (Glockenspiel) for the Apple iPad. The instrument covers a range of 1 1/2 octaves (from C3 to F#4). Classic Xylophone sounds, Vibraphone sounds and Tubular Bells sounds are available. With TouchBells, you can just freely play along or record and play back your songs. You can also share the songs you recorded with other TouchBells users. By using the TouchBells teach mode, you can learn how to play the songs other TouchBells users share with you. TouchBells is also great for kids early musical education. TouchBells has several unique features: - Xylophone or Vibraphone sounds. - Adjustable Stereo effect. - Its tunable, you can alter the instrument pitch. - Song recording and song management. - Share you songs with other TouchBells users by eMail. - Export your songs for iTunes. - Learn how to play using the Teach Mode. - Play dynamically using TouchBells touch-sensitivity feature. - Choose from four different bar captions (None, German-, American- and Solmisation-Style). Furthermore, TouchBells includes 25 demo songs: - Cradlesong (Wiegenlied) - Frere Jacques - Muss i denn, muss i denn zum Staedtele naus - Silent Night - My Bonny Is Over The Ocean - Ode to Joy - The moon as risen - Rondo all Turka (Turkish March) - When the Saints Go Marching In - Matilda - What shall we do with the trunken sailor? - Kojo no Tsuki - The Song of the Volga Boatmen - La Cucaracha - O Christmas Tree - Jingle Bells - Happy Birthday To You - Schneewalzer - Auld Lang Syne - Row, Row, Row Your Boat - Für Elise - Michael Row the Boat Ashore - She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain - Hänschen Klein - Old Mac Donald With the demo songs and the TouchBells Teach Mode, you can start directly with the learning how to play!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Holiday Bells at 4.7 against TouchBells's 2.5. Holiday Bells also leads on ratings volume (56 vs 2) and review sentiment (94% vs 78%). TouchBells's advantage is update cadence (every 5 months vs every 23 months). On ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Holiday Bells costs $0.99 and TouchBells $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Holiday Bells holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 2.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Holiday Bells has 56 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 94% of Holiday Bells's written reviews are positive against 78% of TouchBells's.
Holiday Bells ships an update every 23 months, TouchBells every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Holiday Bells | TouchBells |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 — better | $1.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (56 ratings) — better | 2.5 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 93.8% of reviews — better | 77.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 56 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 23 months | Every 5 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 118 MB | 66 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lightsphere LLC | Thomas Braun |
Customer experience
Holiday Bells
TouchBells
Bugs and requests
Holiday Bells
Reported bugs
7 issues- Lyrics off beat
- iPad rotate for song doesn't work
- Handbells are silent
- App crashes on handbell/more tab for VoiceOver users
- iPad screen edges graphics issue
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Bells do not ring on iPad 2
- Cannot adjust volume after update
Requested features
19 requests- Label bells with note names
- Add another octave
- Songs that play automatically
- Add non-holiday songs
- Upload sticker pack to iMessage
Show 14 moreShow fewer
- Next note highlight for easier play
- More songs
- Auto-play feature
- Different bell sounds
- Background music during songs
- Record own songs
- Adjust bell volume/speed with shake
- Sharps and flats
- Three octaves
- Marts and damping for handbells
- Extend range to two octaves
- Add half-steps
- Adjust handbell fade into silence
- Lock screen within app
TouchBells
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Holiday Bells
No in-app purchases
TouchBells
No in-app purchases









