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Purim … there’s an app for that
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| Stuart Rubin, left, and Brad Kleinman created a mobile Purim app for Apple. |
By Douglas J. Guth
Senior Staff Reporter
Purim should be festive and fun, say
entrepreneurs Stuart Rubin and Brad Kleinman.
In that spirit, these two “nice Jewish boys” from Cleveland plan to celebrate their peoples’ salvation from the evil Haman with “Grogger Factory,” a “synagogue friendly” application the pair launched last month for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
The mobile app, which can be downloaded for 99 cents from iTunes, enables users to build their own unique gregger (noisemaker) from multiple models, textures, backgrounds and sounds. The three-dimensional noisemaker spins and makes a satisfying racket when the user gently shakes the chosen “iDevice.”
Rubin, 35, a bespectacled software engineer from Orange, demonstrates Grogger Factory in digital marketing entrepreneur Kleinman’s office at the Beachwood Business Development Center. Like other apps, lightly touching the screen allows the user to scroll through the various options available. Rubin chooses a lush jungle background fronted by a spinning snakeskin-textured gregger that makes a cowbell sound.
Kleinman, 28, of Beachwood, guesses there are hundreds or even thousands of gregger permutations available. Some of the choices may seem silly, he admits, but Kleinman and his business partner designed the app as a kind of “self-expression tool” not to be taken too seriously.
The app is even “rabbi-approved,” notes Rubin, a Temple Emanu El congregant who got the thumbs up from Rabbi Steven Denker.
The custom of drowning out Haman’s name has no set rules, notes the rabbi. Some congregations stamp their feet, while others use greggers. An electronic gregger “is 100% within the spirit of Purim,” Denker says. “It gives people another means to connect to Jewish custom.”
Grogger Factory is the duo’s first project together, although both have created other Judaism-themed iPhone applications prior to collaborating. To get in on the app market, prospective designers must become licensed Apple developers, which means paying a fee of $100 and giving Apple 30% of all sales.
Rubin designed “Lulav Wizard,” a virtual lulav users can shake while learning about the holiday of Succot. Kleinman, president/ CEO of WorkSmart eMarketing, is creator of iGavolt, an app featuring sayings by his grandmother Annette Kleinman Markell (“Miss your bubbe? iPhone app puts her in your pocket,” CJN, June 26).
Rubin and Kleinman were introduced by a mutual friend, based on their shared interest in developing unique electronic products for a Jewish audience. The Jewish app market has a largely educational and informational bent, including programs to help users find a kosher restaurant or deliver a proper Hebrew blessing.
The pair came up with about 20 ideas for what they hoped were fun Jewish iPhone applications. Among the discarded concepts were game apps with such titles as “Catch the Gefilte Fish” and “Lox and Loaded.”
Grogger Factory, they decided, was a “universal concept” that could appeal to all ages, says Kleinman. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, (shaking) a gregger can still be cool,” he adds. It also helped that the pair had a window to develop, market and launch the app in time for Purim on Feb. 28.
Kleinman is e-marketing Grogger Factory through Facebook, a website (www.greggorfactory.com), and Jewish-themed blogs.
Now that they have brought Grogger Factory to market, Rubin and Kleinman plan to collaborate on future Jewish and “secular novelty” iPhone apps. While the partners’ previous apps have been downloaded by hundreds of iPhone users, they admit the work isn’t lucrative enough for full-time dedication.
Nor is a virtual gregger meant to replace the real thing, insist the pair. They see their electronic Jewish noisemaker as a welding of modern technology and Jewish tradition in a “hyper-connected” world.
dguth@cjn.org
In that spirit, these two “nice Jewish boys” from Cleveland plan to celebrate their peoples’ salvation from the evil Haman with “Grogger Factory,” a “synagogue friendly” application the pair launched last month for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.
The mobile app, which can be downloaded for 99 cents from iTunes, enables users to build their own unique gregger (noisemaker) from multiple models, textures, backgrounds and sounds. The three-dimensional noisemaker spins and makes a satisfying racket when the user gently shakes the chosen “iDevice.”
Rubin, 35, a bespectacled software engineer from Orange, demonstrates Grogger Factory in digital marketing entrepreneur Kleinman’s office at the Beachwood Business Development Center. Like other apps, lightly touching the screen allows the user to scroll through the various options available. Rubin chooses a lush jungle background fronted by a spinning snakeskin-textured gregger that makes a cowbell sound.
Kleinman, 28, of Beachwood, guesses there are hundreds or even thousands of gregger permutations available. Some of the choices may seem silly, he admits, but Kleinman and his business partner designed the app as a kind of “self-expression tool” not to be taken too seriously.
The app is even “rabbi-approved,” notes Rubin, a Temple Emanu El congregant who got the thumbs up from Rabbi Steven Denker.
The custom of drowning out Haman’s name has no set rules, notes the rabbi. Some congregations stamp their feet, while others use greggers. An electronic gregger “is 100% within the spirit of Purim,” Denker says. “It gives people another means to connect to Jewish custom.”
Grogger Factory is the duo’s first project together, although both have created other Judaism-themed iPhone applications prior to collaborating. To get in on the app market, prospective designers must become licensed Apple developers, which means paying a fee of $100 and giving Apple 30% of all sales.
Rubin designed “Lulav Wizard,” a virtual lulav users can shake while learning about the holiday of Succot. Kleinman, president/ CEO of WorkSmart eMarketing, is creator of iGavolt, an app featuring sayings by his grandmother Annette Kleinman Markell (“Miss your bubbe? iPhone app puts her in your pocket,” CJN, June 26).
Rubin and Kleinman were introduced by a mutual friend, based on their shared interest in developing unique electronic products for a Jewish audience. The Jewish app market has a largely educational and informational bent, including programs to help users find a kosher restaurant or deliver a proper Hebrew blessing.
The pair came up with about 20 ideas for what they hoped were fun Jewish iPhone applications. Among the discarded concepts were game apps with such titles as “Catch the Gefilte Fish” and “Lox and Loaded.”
Grogger Factory, they decided, was a “universal concept” that could appeal to all ages, says Kleinman. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, (shaking) a gregger can still be cool,” he adds. It also helped that the pair had a window to develop, market and launch the app in time for Purim on Feb. 28.
Kleinman is e-marketing Grogger Factory through Facebook, a website (www.greggorfactory.com), and Jewish-themed blogs.
Now that they have brought Grogger Factory to market, Rubin and Kleinman plan to collaborate on future Jewish and “secular novelty” iPhone apps. While the partners’ previous apps have been downloaded by hundreds of iPhone users, they admit the work isn’t lucrative enough for full-time dedication.
Nor is a virtual gregger meant to replace the real thing, insist the pair. They see their electronic Jewish noisemaker as a welding of modern technology and Jewish tradition in a “hyper-connected” world.
dguth@cjn.org
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