If you haven’t make it yet as an iPhone developer, Sam Kaplan and Louie Harboe, a couple of seventh graders from Chicago, may make you rethink your career choice.
The pair’s iPhone development company, Tapware, recently released its first iPhone application called “The Mathmaster” and has a second app in the hopper. Based in Hyde Park and supported by seed funding from a business school professor at the University of Chicago, Kaplan and Harboe have been plotting their success trajectory for years.
“Since the fifth grade, we’ve had this idea of working together and becoming successful,” said Harboe, a professional designer with a portfolio of images and icons at www.graphicpeel.com.
The Mathmaster is a simple tool designed to interest kids in things like square roots and multiplication tables. The pair developed the app in about a month and it was approved by Apple’s App Store within a week.
They hope to launch a second, quirkier advertising-based application around their site sipthatdrink.com in the coming months.
“Our goal was to get approved by the app store, sell a bunch of copies and make more apps,” said Kaplan, who has already completed an advanced placement computer science course and served as a keynote speaker at the National American Council for Online Learning.
Makes paper routes and lemonade stands look very 20th century, doesn’t it?
