Watch, the only personal wearable smartwatch from Apple, has started selling around the world after being unveiled in September 2014. The Watch will be compatible only with Apple iPhones and thousands of app developers are already working on developing apps for the wearable.
The Hindu reported that Madhan Karky is giving the Apple Watch users a taste of the Tamil language. Madhan Karky is a film lyricist and has been developing two language apps for the personal wearable. The two apps under development are ‘Agaraadhi’, which is a dictionary, while the other is ‘Kural,’ a Tirukkural version.
The 35-year-old Karky, son of renowned lyricist Vairamuthu, told The Hindu, “I want Tamil and technology to go hand in hand.” The report quoted Karky stating, “I want to come up with more apps in Tamil. The intention is to come out with one app a month.” Karky would teach computer science at Anna University before taking to writing lyrics full time.
The report further added that ‘Agaraadhi’ has 2.6 lakh root words and 1.1 million definitions. The app will feature words from the ‘Sangam’ era, right up to the present modern age. On the other hand, ‘Kural’ will be a collection of the 1,330 couplets penned by poet Thiruvalluvar, 2,000 years ago. Both apps will be bilingual, in Tamil and English.
While Agaraadhi will be available on the App Store for free, Kural will cost Rs 60. The apps are initially developed for Apple’s iPhones and designed by Karky Research Foundation, which is a Tamil computing non-profit organization, run by Karky himself.
Apart from Karky, Alvin Varghese, who is a colleague, and Akhilesh Balachandder, a student at SRM University, have helped in the development of the said project. Karky stated that it was a challenge to develop the apps and the major hurdle was designing the fonts for the Watch. The Watch’s display is tiny and they had to use a simulator for the process. Varghese is a 22-year old science engineer and has stated taking 2-3 hours in designing and 3-5 hours in coding the apps.
Karky has invested Rs 50,000 for each app in the project and has already paid Apple Rs 7,500 for the necessary licence.
