Reading Chess books on Tablet apps review

A few days back I found about smartchess app and decided to look around if

more chess ebooks might be available in this format. There are around four such apps available on the iTunes store and looks like a great way to study chess books.

My two cents,

- These app needs to have cross platform compatibility. Should work on PC's / Macs / iOS and Android. This would lead to more volume in buying and help in reducing prices.

- Just like Kindle versions, books need to be lot cheaper than Printed books.

Since this could be a great way to deal with online piracy, cheaper versions would discourage piracy and work out a win win situation for both buyers as well as writers. Chess writers should encourage this platform as piracy is next to impossible with apps like this.

Found four apps for now

Eplusbooks.com Seems to be the best among the current lot. If this was stock listed on a

Stock market, I would buy it. This looks like a multibagger.

Gambit chess Studio Beautifully designed but will be limited most probably to Gambit

Playsmartchess.com Doesn't seem to have much content in terms of chess titles.

Forward Chess. www.forwardchess.com

Chess viewer by Everyman. At first glance seems to be most pathetic among all apps.

I have a gut feeling, it is eplusbooks and Gambit apps which are going to compete for the top spot.

Everyman books can be read on PC/Mac and tablet, and have the biggest choice of books.

E+Chess is good, but does not have many books to choose from.

I don't know the others.

I doubt if prices will come down because of the time it must take to produce all of the pgn's.

E+chess app usually has books for sale every couple of weeks or so. You will only find out which ones are on sale by going to the "book store" inside the app

I have the Forward Chess app on my android tablet. It's a great app, and they're continually expanding the book list. I highly recommend it.

Would love to hear your thoughts on Forward Chess - this is the one we are participating in.

By the way, our belief is that no publisher alone (even Everyman) can have enough scale to pull this off. That's why we decided against building our own app and cast our lot with a bunch of colleagues/competitors. It diminishes the flexibility we have, but we think it is worth it.

Can you move the chess pieces from the games, variations, and diagrams on all of these apps?  Can you click any move in a game and have the diagram change to that move on a diagram? This is a must before I buy. Also, I don't have a smart phone or tablet yet so I'd have to have PC compatibility.