Live Chess! Live Chess! Live Chess! 
Computer Workout would be good too.
I'd vote for Chess Mentor, but I have yet to get enough cash to get the diamond account so I can use it.
I use Tactics Trainer and correspondence chess on my iPhone already. It's not too bad in mobile Safari. Except I can't type comments / forum posts with mobile Safari, but that's an entirely different issue I suppose.
I'm thrilled to hear that you're considering Tactics Trainer! I've still got about six-seven chess-related apps on my Touch, and I probably spend 50% my time with ChessQuest (puzzles, puzzles, puzzles).
Correspondence-style was pretty much assumed (for me anyway 
).
I was actually a little surprised you are thinking about including playing against the computer. It's just so... you know.. anti-social. 
Would this be a local engine on the device, or all server-side and requiring connectivity? I don't really consider this feature one of chess.com's core competencies or real differentiators on the web, and there is some *stiff* competition in the field of apps already. I guess it would add value for folks who will never install a second chess app anyway.
A few other ideas:
- Turn vacation on/off
- Set status
- Message friends (or leave notes)
As far as playing an engine online, I use the Shredder iPhone Web Game.
I'm more concerned with the UI. There's a game for the iPhone called "Reversi Online Tournament" that I have. The UI is great! It's amazing the amount of information that they have crammed into a small screen and yet it doesn't seem cluttered. My favorite feature of all is the "tray" that you slide in and out to type in and yet you can still see a portion of the game board. It sounds stupid (probably because it is), but sometimes I launch it just to play a few game -- not because I like reversi that much, but just because it's easy to use, observe games and chat with people.
I thought you might want to take a look at that to get some inspiration for UI elements. Of course, that might only be a useful UI for a Chess.com live chess iPhone app and not necessarily for the other elements of the site. As you can see, I'm more interested with live chess than anything else. Although, a Tactics Trainer that is customized to the iPhone's format rather than just using a web browser would be my second concern.
Here's maybe a strange question: Does "live chess" on the chess.com iPhone app necessarily equal chess.com Live Chess?
In other words, do we *need* to support logging in to both of these 'systems' to provide iPhone users with a venue for real-time chess.com action?
Take the popular "Chess With Friends" app, for instance. It's really a 'correspondence style' app, because you always have seven days to make your move before you auto-resign or time out. However, if you and your opponent are online at the same time, play can be pretty much as fast and furious as internet connectivity will allow. (There is even a cool feature that shows you when your opponent is looking at your game - in the form of a pair of graphical eyeballs on the other side of the board!) Of course, that's how e-chess works here too, to some extent - with the board auto-updating when it's my move. (Brilliant!)
In other words, the app could fully support real-time play without actually supporting Live Chess. What would be lacking is the ability to enforce real-time play for the duration of the game though the shorter time controls in Live Chess. How important is that? (I've only played one game of Live Chess, so I'm not really qualified to answer my own question there...)
Cheers
i played one "live chess" app... and lost when my phone rang and i had to take the call. we're more likely to just make "echess" more "live" feeling :)
Makes sense to me. I can only pretend to take calls on my Touch. ;-)
Also...
- Start game with friend (i.e. challenge friend)?
- Start game via Open Seeks (i.e. accept seek or create new seek)?
Probably don't require an open username-search for challenging just anyone... (?)
I use Chess with Friends, ichess, Shredder and of course Safari to go to Chess.com
Erik,
To answer your question. A way to access our games here and chat would be great.
The mentor and tactics would be good to.
But, even better would be live chess!
I use my iphone a lot because I'm often on the move. At present I navigate using safari, but the resizing is a real pain.
I suggest the basic turn-based features optimised for the iphone screen. The rest is very secondary for me. Live chess wouldn't work well on iphone IMO. Tactics trainer would be useful, but I'm not worried about that - I can live without it until I can get back to an internet connection.
Particular work needs to go into the online chess home screen, abbrieviating game names and such so it is all easy to read and touch the correct button! I'd like well located tabs (possibly down the right hand side of the board) for the messages, notes etc. The notes and moves need to be scrollable (I use these a lot).
Easy access to the Games Explorer would be great too.
Very much looking forward to it! I would love to be able to access the games explorer with ease. Also looking forward to being able to play my games from my phone without having to resize in Safari! Maybe reading messages, notes, alerts etc. would be cool too (Facebook iPhone app style, maybe?). Everything else is extra for me, I think.
Thank you for the new future program! I agree with all ideas, all chess.com functions will be fantastic on iphone (specially turn base chess, mentor and tactics). The main job for me can be to get the program work ok.ie: Chess with friend was fantastic because version 1 was quick and intuitive, now the version 2 is slow in the server conection. I hope they will solve this because I preffer vesion 1 better than the version 2 which has a lot of new functions.
Sounds great and look forward to it! Do you know if the chess.com app have limited moves per day depending on your subscription? And will there be a price tag for the app?
Also, let us know if you need beta testers...
Live chess would be last on my list until live chess is out of beta. And there is no reason that both live and move chess need to be the same app. Conceptually they are so different that having separate apps may be a very good idea.
What makes chess.com good is a community to play, a UI that’s useable, and in game features (Game explorer, Analysis Board, ext). Maximizing the features available on a touch device is going to depend on the UI. My first priority for a web app is for my games the second is tactics trainer, which I hope poses less of a UI problem.
Beyond game interaction, the hard part IMO is getting access to the 3 tabs: Messages, Moves, and Notes. For this stuff, feature integration is going to be key. If some how you could merge both the analysis board (AB) and the Notes that would be great. The AB could be merged with the conditional moves as well to make one cohesive move board.
With the first app, I am ok with loosing some features such as Messages. For me, an iphone app is a means to play while away from my computer; but not a new method to play. That could change depend on how game play feels.
Also, with the new SDK 3.0, what if chess mentor became an app where you could buy additional lessons? That could be cool as well- and its monitizable. Depending no how its priced and bundled, it could be a great way to package chess lessons.
Good luck!
i think basicly just wats on the computer chess.com only just like pleay against comp and stuff like that
The main diference can be mentor, everything else is done. But is not perfectly done:
1)Turn based chess: There is "chess with friends" but there are no rating!! i always play with weak players there!!. To provide the turn based chess.com on the iphone will really make people forget chess with friends. I mainly agree with deepgreen´s coments about chess with friends on pick #8. I will tri Reversi Online as Enormous_Gastropod suggest on pick#4
2)Tactics: As Deep green said there is a great comercial program called chess quest (chess cebra) But I´ll love to use my chess.com account. There is a big issue: The need to be conected. Them I supose I will use chess.com tactic (hipothetical) and still chess quest (not online problems).
3)Live chess: For me is not a priority, many of us use the iphone to play chess on the bus, on the underground and I will not find myself in a hurry playing against the clock. This is just an oppinion. There are many succesfull programs to conect to fics or similar and people do like them!. I agree with many ideas of jonnyjupiter on pick #11 and ajgreen on #12
4)Engine: I think is not neccesary: there are many!! but if you do it use a good style engine as glaurung (I´m a big fun of this program) there is more important to have a fun chess engine with fun gui and fun options.
But as thebadthief (pick #15) the problem can be the " integration". We are talking about a lot of functions!!! I´m not sure if I agree having more than one application, can be a good idea but I´m not sure.
I´m a diamond member but I´m interested (as Severn pick #14) In future chess.com idea about the iphone program. Any restriction for diferent kind of members?
Thank you for developing this app and sorry for my poor English
3)Live chess: For me is not a priority, many of us use the iphone to play chess on the bus, on the underground and I will not find myself in a hurry playing against the clock.
Exactly. I don't think live play is something that will translate well to an iphone until the phone network is so good that I dont have to worry about timing out. And even then, because of reception issues (think downtown Chicago) its not going to be my first choice for live chess.
Questions like does it need a chess engine are great at getting at the heart of what the app is. I believe the focus should be on allowing turn based play. Nothing more.
A chess.com app doesn’t need to be everything for every chess player. I would rather (and I would pay for) a superb app that allows me to play my chess.com turn games, rather than a mediocre app (that was free) that allows me to play my chess.com turn, live and mentor games.
That said, to be a superb app, I think it is all about feature integration to allow for pleasant playing experience.
Erick, i cant even tell you how much i've been waiting for the chess.com iphone app ... and now that i saw this post, (which is about 10 days old now lol) my excitement just jumped to a new level :D
All the suggestions made by people are spot on :D
oh and im not sure if anyone has mentioned it or not but can you please include chat mode on the turn-based chess?
oh and im with you, i played live-chess and when i get calls i loose, it sucks :(
hope this chess.com app comes out soon :D
Cheers,
So from what I'm reading, here are the desired core functionalites for the initial release:
IMO, live chess won't be feasible in the near future, if ever.
My advice is to keep it simple, yet functional - making it too complex will not produce a strong demand. I would think the main goals of this app would be to: 1) allow existing users to play remotely as if they were on the site 2) draw traffic to the site (so getting the UI to match the site would be key).
I would also suggest the app be free in order to attract as many people to the site. Right now there are too many crappy pay chess apps and ours might get lost in the fray. Keeping it free would help keep it on top of the Apple rankings, reducing the barrier to entry. If you go the pay route, I suggest $0.99 (of course I would pay at least $20 ) - the thought being to make it up in volume.
My current usage is typically not to make moves, but rather to study them before I make them or to check if an opponent has made a move. I mostly just click the game link once in online chess to get the pop up and then just view each game preview to study.
we're starting work on the chess.com iphone app. let's discuss features here!
the 3 things i would like to include are:
- play against your friends (correspondence-style)
- tactics trainer
- play computer
thoughts?