Runatal vs Dot Dash
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Runatal
Explore the ancient wisdom of Elder Futhark runes. This app offers a comprehensive guide to the oldest runic alphabets, detailing their history, meanings, and traditional poems. It's perfect for learners, historians, and those fascinated by ancient languages and cultures.
- Elder Futhark rune exploration
- Detailed rune meanings
- Traditional rune poems
- Ancient symbol immersion
- Historical context
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Discover the ancient wisdom of the Elder Futhark with Runatal, your comprehensive guide to the oldest form of the runic alphabets. Dive into the rich history and profound meanings of each rune, explore traditional rune poems, and immerse yourself in the mystic world of ancient symbols. Runatal is designed for learners, historians, and anyone interested in ancient languages and cultures.
Dot Dash
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Every letter has a rhythm. Dot Dash helps you learn Morse code the way operators always have: by ear, by touch, by repetition. The practice surface is a brass telegraph key from the 1920s, drawn to work like the real thing. Tap it for a dot. Hold it for a dash. It clicks under your thumb, and on iPhones that support it you feel the rhythm as haptics too. A short walkthrough shows you dots and dashes the first time you open the app, and then you choose a tier and go: Easy, for listening. Ten common letters with their patterns always visible. Perfect for your first session. Medium, for learning. The full alphabet. Patterns fade as you tap, so your memory does the work. Hard, for remembering. Letters and numbers, by sound and feel alone. You are hearing the rhythm now. Three speed presets change the room between the marks inside each letter, so a new learner has time to think while every letter keeps its real shape. A full reference chart is one tap away, and tapping any letter plays its rhythm out loud. When a session ends you get a recap in plain English, plus a short quote from the history of telegraphy. Every quote is real, sourced, and public domain. Send a telegram. Pick one of a hundred short phrases, from GOOD MORNING to GOOSE ON THE LOOSE, and Dot Dash paints it in Morse above a brass key, ready to share or save. No typing, nothing stored. The Operator's Pack, if you want more. A one-time purchase adds callsign drills: hear a whole call sign at 5, 13 or 20 words per minute with true Farnsworth spacing, then key it back one letter at a time. It also adds four more app icons and seventeen more sounds for the key. Sixty percent of what is left after costs from every Operator's Pack is committed to CommunicationFIRST, a civil rights organization for people who cannot rely on speech alone to be heard and understood, and every tenth purchase commits the whole remainder. Quarterly receipts: sillydroose.com/donations/dotdash. No scores. No timers. No streaks. Nothing to keep up with. Just you and the pattern. Dot Dash works entirely offline and collects nothing. I built it because Morse is a small, beautiful skill, and learning it should feel like tapping out messages by lamplight, not grinding a curriculum. The practice is free, and it stays free. No ads. No data collected. Ever.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Runatal at every 2 weeks against Dot Dash's every 5 weeks. Runatal also leads on device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Runatal ships an update every 2 weeks, Dot Dash every 5 weeks. Both last shipped on October 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Runatal | Dot Dash |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andrei Skurlatov | Drew Douglass |
In-app purchases
Runatal
No in-app purchases
Dot Dash
No in-app purchases









