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ChristmasPrism App: Marple Grad Helps Bring Joy to the Neighborhood by Holly Stupak Photos courtesy of Mike Kane
Mike, a professional coder, decided to take matters into his own hands and created the ChristmasPrism app, which helps users find houses with the best holiday lights. He spent three weekends in a row perfecting the app, which launched in early December 2020. The app is user-generated, so anyone with an elaborate light display can upload a photo of their house with a title, brief description and location. For people looking for light displays, the app’s built-in map shows where these homes are. Just tap an icon and the information pops right up. The app also allows visitors to “like” the display and even add comments.
It’s hard not to find yourself in a festive mood when you’re driving through town looking at the homes decorated for the Christmas season. For many of us, it’s a tradition for the whole family to pile into the car, listen to Christmas music The ChristmasPrism App and look at the houses decorated with the best light displays. But what if you’re not sure where to find all of the extravagant houses or want to explore homes in other towns? Thanks to Marple Newtown High School graduate Mike Kane, there’s an app for that!
Although the number of users was small at first, the app really took off after Mike was featured in Philly Mag, 6ABC, NBC10 and Fox29. By mid-December 2020 they received well over 800 downloads. And while at first most of the homes were in the Delaware County area, they now have 2,000 houses and 70,000 users in all 50 states. With last year’s holiday season happening in the height of the pandemic, Mike said the app was a great way for people to come together during a dark time. “With all the social distancing measures in place, going out for a drive to look for lights was a fun and safe activity for families to do,” said Mike. “People enjoyed being able to show off their homes, and it brought many people joy!”
Mike said it’s a family tradition at his house to drive around and look at neighborhood light displays during the Christmas season. Last November, he was trying to get into the holiday spirit with his two young sons early in the season, but he wasn’t finding enough houses to entertain them. “My two-year-old son was crying because he wanted to find more houses with lights,” explained Mike. “My wife and I checked local Facebook groups and the Nextdoor app, but we weren’t able to find out where all of the best local displays were.”
A self-taught coder, Mike graduated from Marple in 2003 and then entered a two-year informational technology program. But at the age of 21, he developed CIDP (chronic inflammatory
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