The Shabbos App addresses all of the potential halachic issurim that can occur when using a smartphone on Shabbos. Below is a brief synopsis of how the Shabbos App resolves the problems.
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Uvdah D’chol: When the Shabbos App is activated, the screen is flipped upside down and locked in that mode, so that a user would hold need to hold the phone in the opposite manner that it is held during the weekdays. This is a very distinctive difference in how the phone is used – as (a) on a regular weekday nobody would hold the phone upside down (b) the telephone is awkward to use as the speaker is on the bottom and microphone on the top so holding the phone in this manner is definitely “a shinui”. Most importantly, while messaging in the Shabbos App completely different than the regular keypad.
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Writing: The Shabbos App features a unique keyboard that works differently from the keypad that a user would use all week. The keypad is replaced with complete words. A user is able to create a sentence using a combination of words included in the app (120) and can add an additional 30 custom words for a total of 150 word choices. This is not Kosaiv as Kosaiv only applies to creating a word, not to taking existing words and forming a sentence.
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Sounds: All sounds are disabled when the app is active. The user can choose to receive a vibration for new notifications or visual indicators, or both vibration and visual. The visual indicator on the information bar will display any new notifications.If there are alarms set before Shabbos to ring they will continue to work.
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Screen: The app forces the LED backlight of the screen to stay actively lit the entire Shabbos on 1% brightness (this is a very small drain on the battery and will not cause the battery to drain over Shabbos) once the user touches the screen the brightness will change to the preset brightness for use. This function of keeping the backlight on at 1% the entire duration of Shabbos inhibits any potential issur derabonan of turning the screen on and off.
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Misuse: When the Shabbos App is active all functions of the phone are blocked except for the integrated Shabbos App messaging app and ebooks. In the future we will introduce additional modules that will enable more features in a permissible manner.
If you are working with a theoretical problem with Koisev (both Hard Drive and On Screen), how are you sorting that out with an on screen keyboard?
(a) The problem with Koisev On Screen will not be helped by selecting preset words, because they will still be written again? Moving words to make sentences is not the answer, it is simply a play on words (pun intended). You are effectively deleting it and rewriting! (And if it is copying you definitely haven’t gained anything!)
(b) You are writing on the other persons smartphone, what will it gain to preset words on your own?
(c) The problem with Koisev on the Hard Drive is similar – firstly, you will have a problem on the recipients phone, and secondly, you are writing a new thing on yours?
For starters, the whole issue of kosaiv on a digital screen is not real kosaiv, this is a sensitivity issue to some poskim who say temporary writing is a potential problem. We are trying to make the app comply with as many opinions as possible.
The info on the hard drive is not ineligible and therefore not kosaiv. For a good measure, the app will delete all data that is 23 hours old.
All users must have the app, as the app will only message people who have the app.
Great !
A new toy to work with instead of living the Shabbos the way it should be.
Another distraction (usually called the Yetzer Hara) besides the frum newspapers, books, magazines, etc, that canreplace all the kiddusha inherent in what our Torah demands of us.
This app is utter nonsense.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If Koisev digitally is not a problem, like some Poskim (although it is an extremely controversial issue), then you have no problem. But you don’t need an on-screen pre-set keyboard either.
Whatever problems you are coming to solve (see under Potential Halachic Problems where you actually mention these points!), you should still have.
If you are being חושש for the poskim who hold there is a problem, you are not gaining anything by presetting the words.
The halachic authorities we are working with are of the opinion, that there is no problem of Kosaiv on a digital screen, however, we are attempting to make the app comply with as many shitos as we can and the preset keypad does make it comply with more shitos.