Barely thirty days after Apple opened its iPhone App Store back in 2008, Chabad publisher Zalman Goldstein, of The Jewish Learning Group, developed and released three innovative outreach apps: “iBlessing,” “Parve-O-Meter,” followed a month later with “iCharity.”
Among the first Jewish apps to be approved by Apple for the App Store, these user-friendly and educational apps focused on helping Jewish people learn and perform relevant mitzvot. iBlessing was a virtualization of Goldstein’s popular “Say-a-Blessing” electronic keychain” produced in 2007.
Tagged as, “a religious device with buttons that doesn’t explode,” and advertised with the byline, “Blessings often come in disguise…this one comes with batteries!” the device enabled users to press a button for a desired category of food and recite the blessing along the recorded voice. It’s unique function landed it on the “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and featured on the popular gadget site, “Gizmodo.com.”
“ParveOMeter” helps people answer the question, “Am I Dairy? Am I Meaty?” helping them keep track of the waiting times between eating meat or dairy, and dairy and meat. Users of the unique timer press the “Meat” or “Dairy” button when finished eating meat or dairy, and the timer counts down the requisite time before one can eat or drink the other. One can even set the waiting period preferences based on the custom of their local Jewish community.
“iCharity” enables people to give Tzedakah virtually, dragging coins or dollar bills into a virtual pushka. At intervals, the user can “empty” the box and give the tallied total to a charity of their choice.
“I developed and put those apps out there in order to raise people’s awareness of the mitzvot and to make them more doable and approachable,” says Goldstein, whose growing catalog of companion books and other hands-on guides for Jewish life are used around the world. “The digital platform is a powerful tool for reaching people in places one would never be able to normally reach, and for providing them an opportunity to learn about their Jewish heritage in the privacy of their home.”
Indeed, Apple’s App Store “sales and trends” reports for the past 8 years bear this out, showing the apps having been downloaded in the remotest corners on earth and in the most unusual places such as little known locales in Africa, India, Europe, and even in Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
With underlying changes to Apple’s programming requirements arriving with each increment of its iOS ecosystem, iBlessing recently required a complete re-write using the new Apple developed Swift programming language, and the resulting all new, refreshed version is now available on iTunes and the Apple App Store.
View and download the apps here
Is a version available for Android to?