Kithara
What a kithara is
The kithara (Greek κιθάρα) was the large, seven-stringed lyre of the ancient Greek world: a wooden sound box, two solid arms, a crossbar, and strings plucked with a plectrum. Kitharodes competed with it at the great festivals, and it was the attribute of Apollo, god of music and poetry, who is rarely pictured without one.
It was also the instrument of the storyteller. Long before anyone wrote them down, the epics were performed aloud, sung and spoken to the accompaniment of music, by people who carried whole books in their heads and delivered them one evening at a time. A listener of that era knew the Iliad the way a listener today knows a long audiobook: by voice, in instalments, picking up where the last session left off.
The word itself travelled a long way. Through Latin cithara and Spanish guitarra it became guitar, so the instrument on the app icon is, at a stretch of two and a half thousand years, the ancestor of the one in the corner of your living room, or abandoned in the closet for the last 10.
Why an audiobook app is named after one
Audiobooks are the oldest form of literature wearing new clothes: a story told by a voice, to a listener who is doing something else with their hands.
The gold is for the instrument and the purple is Apollo's; the app was very nearly called Apollo before the older, stranger word won.
Who makes it
Kithara (not the kithara) is made by me, Phil. I really just wanted a player for my own files and my own server and could not find one that did both without an account in the middle or with a nice, easy to use interface.
There isn't any shadow investor, venture capital, no analytics and no growth team, which is why the privacy policy fits on one screen and if you're interested in supporting its development, Kithara Pro is a one-time purchase, pay once, keep it forever, no subscription. That is as close as an app gets to being yours.
The Android app is the first Kithara; an iPhone and iPad version is in development. The server and the protocol it speaks are open, so the part that holds your library is yours to run and yours to replace.
Questions, ideas, or a bug? Get in touch.