Holiday Bells vs Tiny Keys
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! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tiny Keys
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Tiny Keys is a minimal iPhone piano keyboard for quick melody checking by ear. It opens straight to a playable keyboard, keeps the interface focused on the keys, and plays over Apple Music, Spotify, and other audio already playing on your device. Features: Play notes without interrupting background music Fast on-screen keyboard with multitouch chords Glissando-style playing by dragging across keys Thin navigation strip to move across a wider range Choose 1, 1.5, or 2 visible octaves Piano, sine, triangle, and square sounds Portrait or landscape app orientation Independent keyboard direction settings No login, no ads, no subscriptions
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Tiny Keys at Free against Holiday Bells's $0.99. Tiny Keys also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 23 months). Holiday Bells's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). 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
Tiny Keys is free to download; Holiday Bells costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Holiday Bells ships an update every 23 months, Tiny Keys every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Holiday Bells | Tiny Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (56 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 93.8% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 56 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 23 months | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 118 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lightsphere LLC | William Paul |
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
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- 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
Tiny Keys
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Holiday Bells
No in-app purchases
Tiny Keys
No in-app purchases









