Shotokan Karate Kata – App for all karateka

Textbook digitized as a karate app

Karate is now available on the iPhone, too. Europe's most widely read author of karate books is going online: The two main works, in which the German-Italian Fiore Tartaglia had broken down the 27 most important katas into 4,400 individual drawings since 2000, have been available as iPhone apps since August.

The apps can be purchased individually from the Apple Store for 0.79 cents and downloaded to your iPhone, or as a complete package for a one-time fee of 12.99 euros, which is almost a third cheaper. And to stimulate the market, the first three katas are available for free to try out anyway.
Initial reactions among karatekas make the Göppingen native, who has sold 40,000 of his karate books so far, optimistic.

The holder of the 5th Dan, who runs a dojo with 140 members in Gosbach, finds it difficult to forecast sales for the apps, which are available in German, English, Spanish, French and Italian.
"There are five million karatekas worldwide," says Tartaglia. And: "17 percent of all cell phone owners worldwide have an iPhone." Accordingly, the potential market volume is 0.85 million interested parties.

In fact, the full-time graphic designer, who runs an advertising agency with his son Ennio in Göppingen, scores points with many details in appearance and function that make his apps attractive and aesthetically pleasing: These include a magnifying glass function to enlarge views; two slow-motion functions to more precisely follow movements; and the Apple-typical vertical view, in which several sketches of a kata can be seen at a glance.

As with the first two books, on which Tartaglia worked for three years, each exercise comprises an average of 163 sketches. New to the app: The basic stances are red, while the three intermediate steps are in classic black. The longest kata is eleven meters long on the iPhone. Here, several files have been seamlessly combined.

The apps offer many additional features and gimmicks. You can choose between six different backgrounds, such as a dojo or a Japanese landscape; a legend explains the individual sketch symbols. You can also share the app on Facebook, rate it, or send suggestions for improvement via email.