In 2009 a filmmaker from New Zealand heard that Apple had created an “App Store” that would allow anyone to publish apps. Intrigued by the news, he began downloading dozens of apps to see what was popular. He came across the Light Saber App that used the iPhone’s “accelerometer” or gyroscope to detect a users hand movement and make sounds. Every time a user shook the phone, various sound effects would play from the phone’s speaker.

The filmmaker wondered if anyone had made a whip app that used the same combination of hardware and software. He met with some developers who informed him that building a whip app would be a piece of cake. All he had to do was get hold of a real whip and record some sound effects. In a matter of days the app was finished and put up on the store for free. Pocket Whip was born. They began building other types of whips and whip packs that users could buy with in-app purchases. The app grew little by little without much publicity.

Then one day in 2012, the unexpected happened. Pocket Whip was featured in a popular TV series called “The Big Bang Theory”. The episode was called “The Weekend Vortex” and every time a woman got her way with one of the male characters, someone would pull out the phone and make the whip sound. They were officially “whipped”. The joke worked and the episode was enormously popular. Downloads of the app soared overnight and Pocket Whip immediately became the number one free app in the entertainment category and the number one top grossing app at the same time.

Soon after that, Paramount Pictures jumped on the bandwagon and made deal with Pocket Whip to do a cross promotion with the Indiana Jones Movie Collection on Blu Ray. The promotion was so successful that Paramount came back again to ask Pocket Whip to promote The Indiana Jones Collection for download on Apple and Amazon.

Flash forward to 2024 and Pocket whip is still going strong. It now has an Android version and has added more features and more whips, the latest being the Laser Whip. Users can also try all whips free for 24 hours by watching a short video. Pocket Whip’s new owner Kinetica is running a competition for users to win a new iPhone16 Pro.