Best iphone chess app?

No, it's not simply the fat-finger factor.  Genius already handles everything Hiarcs does on the game window, so it's really a question of substituting finger-friendly controls for the wee checkboxes in Hiarcs' configuration screens, etc.  (And anyway, my Touch has a significantly larger screen than my Z22.)  Then there's scrolling, for the truly unimaginative.

As a number of apps on my Touch already attest, a little creativity and thoughtfulness in the design can go the distance when it comes to making a lot of sophisticated features portable - and it can certainly bridge the gap between an Palm-platform app and an iPhone.

@Tord: I didn't jailbreak my iPhone so I can't try your program to see if it's really better than ChessGenius, but I honestly doubt about that. To decide precisely which engine is better you must have played with identical time controls and the instant mode is not relevant. But let's say you are right, then why would you throw such a program for nothing, just give it away for free? It doesn't have any sense, you should pretend at least 1 Euro at the beginning and then increase the price if it becomes popular enough. I kinda know how hard it is to make any app, it can take weeks or even months, so you either have too much time to waste or... Well let's say you don't have a business sense at all...

PS: Don't get me wrong, it's great what you're doing, I appreciate your initiative and I want to have better chess apps out there, but it's just to hard to believe that a famous program like CG can be smoked 9-1 by another one coming out of nowhere.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree about this, then.  To me, Chess Genius for the iPhone is just about the perfect handheld chess app.  I like it far more than Hiarcs for Palm OS, in every respect except the chess engine (Hiarcs is far stronger, and also plays more attractive chess). I've never seen a handheld app of any kind which tries to pack a huge amount of features without feeling awkward to use. I prefer apps that perform the most basic and common tasks as elegantly and simply as possible, which is indeed also what Apple recommends in their iPhone user interface guidelines.

This has nothing to do with business sense -- I'm doing this for fun.  It's a hobby, nothing more.  If I sold the program, I would have to do an awful lot of boring paperwork: Arranging a contract with apple, transfer of money from U.S.A to my bank account in Norway, paying taxes, and so on. Moreover, I would feel much more responsibility: If a paying customer would happen to be unable to make my program work, and I would be unable to reproduce the problem, I would feel very bad about it. When my program is free, if someone reports problems I can't reproduce, I can just say that I'm sorry and advice him to delete it.

Selling the program would only give me extra worries, reduce my freedom, and give me extra paperwork to do. What would I get in return? Only money, but I already have a day job, and therefore I have no need of extra money.

As to your other points, Chess Genius is famous for its phenomenal success in the early 1990s. Even today, I would still count it as the most impressive program in the history of computer chess. However, there have been tremendous improvements in chess programming techniques over the last 20 years, and Genius if far behind the top today.  I'm sure it would still be among the best if Richard Lang had kept trying to improve it, but for some reason he seems to have lost interest many years ago.  I hope he'll be back at the top some day -- he's still one of my greatest computer chess heros.

And my program is not coming from nowhere: It has been among the most successful and popular free chess engines for several years. The iPhone GUI is new. The only computer chess rating list which includes both Glaurung and Chess Genius, the CEGT rating list, lists the most recent version of Glaurung 400 Elo points ahead of Chess Genius. On a handheld platform, the gap should be much smaller (as my program is heavily optimized for multi-CPU 64-bit computers), my very rough guess is about 100 Elo points in Glaurung's favor.

I run my tests at a level of 5 minutes/game, by the way. I think Chess Genius would probably win at a sufficiently fast time control (maybe at 1 minute/game, but I need to test this).

Finally, there is hope that you will be able to give my program a try soon. I've submitted it to Apple today, now it just remains how much time they need to approve or reject it.  This can take anything from a few days to several weeks, it seems.

@Tord: I didn't know it's so complicated to submit a non-free application to Apple and now I understand your decision, I hate paparworks and bureaucracy as well...

You're right, ChessGenius didn't improve much since the midd 1990's, I saw that the 1994 edition, running on a 3 GHz dual core processor, needed almost 70 moves to beat the iPhone app running on a mere 412 MHz underclocked processor.

I can't wait to try your prog, it will take several weeks until it's there, you're right. If you don't mind, can you send me some screenshots to see how it looks like? My email is mihaithefirst@gmail.com

Thanks!

As for chess apps for the IPhone, I use and love:

- Chess With Friends (use most often)

- tChess Pro (like the analysis string)

- Deep Green (best interface)

- Cyber Chess (for online play)

- ChessQuest (for puzzles/tactics)

- ChessPlayer (really wish you could search by player or opening)

- ChessClock

I haven't tried Chess Genius... mainly because I don't like the interface and my playing isn't nearly strong enough to beat Deep Green or tChess at upper levels so why try a stronger engine.  BUT - I am intrigued by the ability to upload PGN's.  How easy/difficult is this feature?

Not to get hung up on the word 'upload' here...

Moving games from the device to a computer with Genius is dead simple and uses the device's built-in Mail application - so assuming you've already got that configured, you're golden.

Moving games (PGN databases) from someplace else onto the device is as easy as typing in the URL that references that PGN file.  The tricky part (maybe) is getting the desired PGN someplace that you can hit it in the first place.  One free and very useful service that can allow you to do this is Dropbox, which allows you to create a 'public folder' of files on the Internet.  (Dropbox is fantastic anyway - it's like a free 2GB flash drive on the web.  You can pay for more storage if you want it, and it syncs with a special folder on each computer you install it to.  You can also access the same files from a web-based interface.)

I just tried it for the first time because of this post actually (so thanks!), and I've now got my opening repertoire (such as it is) on my iPod.  I'm sorry you don't like the interface (??).  I'm just loving this thing more and more.  :-)

Michael,

How come, you failed to mention, that Caissa Chess does all what ChessGenius and a lot more at half the price ?  Oh btw I am Caissa Chess author :-) You had interesting review that had nothing to do with the reality. I test all chess apps available too, curiosity. ChessGenious has decent engine, but that is where pros end up. I am not going list cons out of professional decency (very important word). I purposely limited strength to minimize cpu utilization and save battery life. Trust me we are very much in-line in game-play strength.

ChessGenious introduced PGN saves and import 4 month(!!!) after Caissa Chess had it publicly available. 

My dear chesslovers  please  go to application websites, youtube, read independent reviews, look at screenshots, use your own judgement. 

ChessMasterFire

You are funny. There are at least 4 free chess programs on iphone. Funny you referring to the quality of the software. Generally the best soft is free with seldom exceptions like iphone chess. Hopefully Tord_Romstad will prove me right.

Why?.. Well, it's obviously because I make scads of $$ when people buy the app I favour instead of the other... oh, no, wait..  that's you.

Look, I never said anything bad about Caissa.  It was the first chess app I installed on my iPod and is still one of the best looking out there.  (Yes, prettier than Genius!)  And my bad:  I either missed or misunderstood the email function when I last played with your app.  Kudos, this is a great feature, to be sure.

But to accuse me of a departure from reality and then make it sound like all I care about is engine strength??  Puh. Leez.

Genius has a far more diverse (and descriptive) selection of playing-strength levels than the numeric 1-14 in Caissa.  It has a "Next Best" move feature Caissa does not, as well as a Tutor mode Caissa does not, and a "Permanent Brain" setting Caissa does not.  More importantly (at least to me), Caissa does not show the engine's analysis - not during the game, and not during a review of a complete game (both of which are options in Genius).  And how do I download a pgn database to Caissa as I did this afternoon in Genius?

Your app has great bang-for-buck, but to say that it does everything Genius does and more is pure salesmanship.  And by all means people should shop around and do their research.  I have no doubt that some people will prefer Caissa or Deep Green to Genius, and for perfectly valid (if subjective) reasons - just like I prefer Genius (at the moment). 

While I've made my own preferences pretty transparent here, I'd like to think that the comparisons here and above are sufficiently detailed & fact-based to help people make informed decisions based on their own priorities.  That's "reality" enough for me, thanks.

ioffe wrote:

1-4 are number of moves engine think ahead.

5-14 * 100 ms is time engine will look for best move.

That would be good info for a help file or an informative web page.

  

>>> It has a "Next Best" move feature Caissa does not. 

hold hint button for 400 ms in Caissa 

Just so everyone's clear, the "Next Best" feature in Genius (and in an electronic chess board I once had) is different from what you describe.  "Next Best" causes Genius to take back its last move and play the 'next best' alternative.  Holding down the Hint button in Caissa is different:  It goes ahead and makes the 'Hint' move for you.

>>>  Caissa does not show the engine's analysis - not during the game, and not during a review of a complete game. 

Caissa has log but I think there are very few people who need that information. We don't show it. 

For me, analysis is vital.

>>> Tutor mode Caissa does not

Caissa knows about 2008 openings, can identify them and lead you through them 

Yes, both apps announce openings.  How can Caissa 'lead [me] through them'?

>>> how do I download a pgn database ? 

http://ioffe.dev-hda.com/cgi-bin/caissa/allpuzzles.cgi 

This is not a pgn database, and I can't use it in Caissa.  Good selection of puzzles for a handheld browser though.

Thanks for the clarifications, ioffe!

On a different note.... Puzzles!

http://www.iphoneappreviews.net/2009/02/18/chess-quest/

For me the best is glaurung (I´m beta tester) but has occasionaly bug (not important ones and no reproducible) I preffer glaurung but chessgenius is fantastics and with it you can download pgn from web. Glaurung is much stronger (it is my impresion after 30 days playing both)

I´m looking for a decent engine with a  good 3d gui, I have seen http://www.gameloft.es/juegos-iphone/chess-classics/ Any of you have tried chess classic? any of you know which engine is in this gui??

Thank you

Talking about elo diference between glaurung and chessgenius a good start point is the difference in pocket pc version of both (Pocketpc is more similar to an iphone than a pc version). You can see a great list on http://raitpref.hotbox.ru/ct001-r.htm As you can see:

Glaurung           2420

Chessgenius2366

I don´t know if this is like 9-1 score :)

Is the engine in Tord's forthcoming "Glaurung" app the same Glaurung engine used by the existing "Chess O" app?  Maybe it doesn't matter given the reviews for Chess O point to some pretty serious bugs.  I'm curious though...  and looking forward to trying out Glaurung myself as soon as it's available.  :)

Tord_Romstad 

I am testing your engine. Would you be interested in licensing to other developers ? 

@Raciere: PGN uploading is not exactly what it sounds like. This feature only allows you to send the moves list by email. After that you have to copy-paste it into a PGN file to be able to follow and/or analyze the game using a PGN reader or a chess program like Chessmaster or Fritz. It's very easy to do that as these files can be opened with Word or Notepad and are widely available on the internet. By the way, if you have tChess, after the latest update PGN export feature has been added. Good luck!

@Ousland: I wanted to test the beta version of Glaurung, but something went wrong despite the fact that Tord really tried to help me fix the problem. Just before the instalation bar completes, a message pops up and says that "Glaurung couldn't be installed on the iPhone becasuse it cannot be verified". It's really weird, as the installation file in the phone's menu appears ar verified... By the way, don't try ChessClassics, it's a totally waste of money and memory, even at 1,79 Euro. When I bought this app it was 7,99, but there were not so many other chess engines available in the store. I was very disappointed because: the engine is weak even at the hardest level; it loads very slow; the 2D board is too small, very hard to opperate with, and the chessmen looks pathetic; the 3D board is confuzing and you can't really see the moves; there is no analyze mode, no position set up, no PGN export, nothing... But it drains the battery within minutes and takes 80 MB for that. The backgammon app included is no better either. The worst app of any kind I have ever downloaded. Gameloft is a great software producer, but chess is a different thing. Better let them make racing and action games like Ferrari and Brothers in Arms.

Here are two games that I've played against ChessGenius at the hardest level, Game in 2 hours. I hardly won the first one and easily drew the second. In fact that's the problem with this program, it's very hard to beat but easy to draw. If I play safe and I'm forcing some exchanges it has no chance to beat me, it's not aggressive enough. For this draw I only used 35 minutes, while CG used 110 minutes. Check this out:

[Event "2009.01.13"]
[White "You"]
[Black "Genius"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. e3 c6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 a6 9. a3 c5 10. O-O Bb7 11. Re1 Qc7 12. h3 Bd6 13. dxc5 Bxc5 14. Bd2 O-O 15. b4 Bxf3 16. Qxf3 Ne5 17. Qe2 Nxd3 18. Qxd3 Rfd8 19. Qe2 Be7 20. Rac1 Qe5 21. Red1 Rac8 22. Qe1 Rc4 23. Ne2 Nd5 24. Rxc4 bxc4 25. Rc1 Bd6 26. g3 Qe4 27. Nc3 Qd3 28. Qe2 Nxc3 29. Qxd3 cxd3 30. Rxc3 Bf8 31. e4 e5 32. f3 g6 33. Kf2 Rd6 34. Ke3 Bh6+ 35. f4 f6 36. Rxd3 exf4+ 37. gxf4 Bxf4+ 38. Ke2 Rxd3 39. Kxd3 Bxd2 40. Kxd2 Kf7 41. Ke3 g5 42. a4 Ke6 43. Kf3 h5 44. h4 Ke5 45. hxg5 fxg5 46. b5 axb5 47. a5 Kd6 48. a6 Kc6 49. e5 g4+ 50. Kg3 h4+ 51. Kxg4 h3 52. Kxh3 Kb6 53. e6 Kxa6 54. e7 Ka5 55. e8=Q Kb4 56. Kg3 Ka5 57. Kf3 Kb4 58. Ke3 Kc5 59. Kd3 Kb6 60. Kd4 b4 61. Kd5 Kb7 62. Qc6+ Kb8 63. Qb6+ Kc8 64. Kc6 b3 65. Qc7+ 1-0

[Event "2009.02.20"]
[White "You"]
[Black "Genius"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 6. d3 Nf6 7. Bg5 Qxe2+ 8. Bxe2 Be7 9. Nc3 c6 10. Ne4 Nbd7 11. Nd4 d5 12. Nxf6+ Bxf6 13. Bxf6 Nxf6 14. O-O O-O 15. Rfe1 Re8 16. c3 Bd7 17. Nf3 Bg4 18. d4 Nh5 19. Bd1 Nf4 20. Re3 Bf5 21. Nh4 Bd3 22. Bf3 Rxe3 23. fxe3 Ng6 24. Nxg6 Bxg6 25. Kf2 Re8 26. Rf1 f6 27. Ke2 Kf8 28. h3 Ke7 29. Kd2 Kd6 30. g4 h6 31. h4 b6 32. h5 Bf7 33. Re1 Bg8 34. Be2 Be6 35. Rf1 Re7 36. b3 Bc8 37. Kd3 c5 38. Kd2 a5 39. a4 Re4 40. Rf4 cxd4 41. cxd4 Re7 42. Bd3 Bd7 43. Bf5 Bc6 44. Bd3 Rc7 45. Rf1 Ra7 46. Rc1 Re7 47. Rf1 Bd7 48. Bf5 Be6 49. Bxe6 Kxe6 50. Kd3 Kd6 51. Rc1 Re4 52. Rg1 Kc6 53. Rg3 Kd7 54. Kc3 Kc7 55. Kd3 Kc6 56. Kc3 b5 57. Kd3 Kb6 58. Rg2 b4 59. Rg1 Kb7 60. Rg2 Kb6 61. Rg3 Re8 62. Rg2 Re4 1/2-1/2

Hi all,

At last, Glaurung 1.0 is available as a free download from the App Store. 

Unfortunately, I discovered a quite annoying bug in this version just a few hours before Apple accepted it and it appeared on the App Store: It will occasionally freeze during startup, and cause the device to reboot by itself after a minute or so. This happens very rarely or never on most devices, but on some devices it seems to happen regularly. 

If this problem sounds too painful for you (but remember that it might not appear at all on your phone), please wait for the 1.0.1 version. I've already fixed the bug, but it may take some time before Apple accepts the updated version and it appears on the App Store.

For users of jailbroken phones, I recommend using Abaia (now available from BigBoss, and easily installable through Cydia) instead.  It's identical to Glaurung, apart from the fact that updates and bug fixes will appear more rapidly.  The above-mentioned bug is already fixed in the current version of Abaia.

Tord

So the vital question not asked in this thread (and something that I am sure will get flamed); is chess.com going to create a version of their software for the iPhone?  Imagine the capabilities:

1. Playing live chess over wifi.

2. Playing turn based chess on the phone with just the board on screen.

3. Doing a bit of tactics trainer.

I am sure they have thought of this already and am planning to recreate the application compatible for the iPhone.  So any news on this?

I don't know about the specific features, but yes, in another thread Erik did say this was in the works.  Not sure if it will be an app in the App Store or just an iPhone-friendly web-application (or both).