Any updates to what people consider the best chess apps for the iphone/ipod?
So far Chess Genius, HIARCS, tChess and Glarung seem to be the best products.
When more start allowing download of PGNs from the Internet, even better.
Best iphone chess app?
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Sep 18, 2009
0
#163
chessoholicalien wrote:
Any updates to what people consider the best chess apps for the iphone/ipod?
So far Chess Genius, HIARCS, tChess and Glarung seem to be the best products.
When more start allowing download of PGNs from the Internet, even better.
Agreed. So far, that capability is exclusive to Chess Genius.
I would say that Shredder warrants a spot on your list. It's an excellent app.
People who aren't so hung up on being able to save multiple games, email games or view analysis should also give Deep Green a try; it gets high marks for an extremely elegant design and loads of visual (and aural) appeal.
Another "factor" that might sway some people (and maybe not others) towards one app or another is how explicit the app is about chess openings. Personally, I think tChess Pro and Hiarcs are particularly well-suited to helping someone learn more about openings - even though other apps might out-shine them in other aspects.
Also, there's an app coming out from a certain chess website in the next month or so; it's going to be completely free and it's going to be a must-have in this category. 
Thanks, Deep Greene.
Could anyone who has any of these apps for iPhone/iPod - Chess Genius, HIARCS, tChess and Glarung - post some PGNs of your app playing chess (either against a human or another engine)?
We could organize an iPhone/iPod app tournament - that would be interesting!
Has your app ever managed to beat a top engine for PCs (e.g. Fritz, Rybka, ChessMaster) on high settings?
Sep 21, 2009
0
#165
I'll send you an invite to the iPhone/iPodTouch owner's group. We have quite a lot of that in our forums, actually. :)
EDIT: Ok, you're not accepting those. :) If you're interested anyway, you can find the group here: http://www.chess.com/groups/view/apple-iphone--ipod-touch-owners
Thanks, man. I don't actually own an Ipod Touch - I'm waiting for a version with a camera to come out (which will be within 6 months I hope) - but I'll join anyway :-)
oliebol wrote:
Looks excellent! But is it possible to:
- change the board colours and the pieces?
- save your games to a database?
- import/export PGNs (e.g. off the Internet)
- add an offline engine (for analysis or AI play) to the interface?
Thanks.
oliebol wrote:
I've answered these questions in the other thread - hope you (and anyone else who's interested) will sign up for the beta! :)
Sorry, but it looks like that thread has been deleted. Can you answer the questions again here? Thanks!
Sep 24, 2009
0
#171
chessoholicalien wrote:
oliebol wrote:
I've answered these questions in the other thread - hope you (and anyone else who's interested) will sign up for the beta! :)
Sorry, but it looks like that thread has been deleted. Can you answer the questions again here? Thanks!
Yeah... maybe we can get *this* thread deleted too.. 
Has anyone tried Chess Elite?
Its a brand new Chess App for the iPhone. A strong Chess engine combined with beautiful graphics will ensure that you will be glued to it for hours together.
With Elo rating, every match you play against someone will count and will add to or reduce your rating based on whether you win or lose.
It also supports great features like Game Summary, which will list your overall wins and losses… along with Push Notification support to let you know when you receive a challenge or a move in an online game.
Sharpen your brains if you don't want to end up at the bottom of the list!
FEATURES:
-1st Chess Game with Push Notification support
-1 Player mode against device
-2 Player pass & play mode with auto-flip
-2 Player correspondence mode
-Play against Contacts and community of chess players
-Simultaneously play against device and friends
-Intuitive and easy to use UIs with spectacular graphics
-Unlimited undo and redo
-Shows legal moves, hints, coordinates, last moves
-Playback of games for analysis
-Elo Rating system to rate the relative chess skills of players
-Game summary in terms of overall Wins and Losses
-Sort feature to display the list of opponents sorted based on Name, Elo Rating, Max Wins, Max Losses
I just tried online Shredder on my sister's 1st gen iPod Touch. I'm really impressed how easy it is to use and how responsive it is. Plus the quality of the display. Aim to try Glarung soon too.
Definitely convinced getting a 3rd gen iPod Touch is a good buy :-)
Oct 2, 2009
0
#174
chessoholicalien wrote:
I just tried online Shredder on my sister's 1st gen iPod Touch. I'm really impressed how easy it is to use and how responsive it is. Plus the quality of the display. Aim to try Glarung soon too.
Definitely convinced getting a 3rd gen iPod Touch is a good buy :-)
Yeah, I agree Shredder's interface is among the best--as well as the adaptive strength and ratings tracking. The 1000 free tactics puzzles aren't bad either. :)
DeepGreene wrote:
I've tried pretty much all of them (and there's more now than there used to be)... Here's my 2 cents:
ChessGenius is King. It's got the best combination of options, a fine interface (one of the few that shift when the device is turned), a killer engine, the ability to show analysis and announce openings, lots of levels, and you can also employ the a 'next best move' feature to force the engine to play alternative moves.
Best of all, in addition to managing saved games in multiple PGN databases on your iPod/Phone, you can also email games (complete or otherwise) in PGN format from the app. This means that you can set the app on human vs. human and use your iPod/Phone as an OTB game recorder, with no trouble transferring the game to your PC later on.
The one limitation of this app, which may bother some people more than it does me is that it doesn't give the user a view of captured pieces anywhere that I can find. (Personally, I tend to worry more about the stuff on the board than the stuff off of it.)
tChess Pro is also pretty excellent. It does probably the best job with analysis, giving you the ability to step backwards and forwards through a game as the engine shows you its analysis. (Surprisingly, the ability to step back and forth through moves already played is still rather rare in the world of iPhone chess.) tChess is a good-looking app, but very straight-forward.
I have also enjoyed playing Deep Green, which has a bit more personality in terms of its look & feel. It plays a great game and has a very nice interface - which is important because you can't customize it in any way. It's awesome for casual chess but lacks many of the features of Genius.
Caissa Chess has maybe the nicest looking chess board of them all, but again, from a features perspective, it's not as robust as Genius.
There are a few others out there that really aren't worth the time it takes to install them, but the field has changed a lot in a very short time. The first time I searched 'chess' in the App store, I came up almost empty - and that has already changed a LOT, so there are more good things to come.
Also, I've never tried any apps that feature online play against other humans. That's what I come here for. :)
papaya chess app is the best online iphone chess app, you can play against other people, earn rating etc. I play all the time. it has glitches but still is fun. just type papaya in itunes app store
I am looking for an iPhone tool that will display the games from PGN files.
I play online on my mac, and then analyze the games with ExtraChessLite on my laptop. I would like something like this for the iPhone.
I probably will not play a lot against the computer, or with others online, but may be willing to buy a full feature app just to get the PGN ability. I have read some through the thread, and I know that several aps will let you export PNGs, or download them from the web.
Oct 14, 2009
0
#178
pawnstampede wrote:
I am looking for an iPhone tool that will display the games from PGN files.
I play online on my mac, and then analyze the games with ExtraChessLite on my laptop. I would like something like this for the iPhone.
I probably will not play a lot against the computer, or with others online, but may be willing to buy a full feature app just to get the PGN ability. I have read some through the thread, and I know that several aps will let you export PNGs, or download them from the web.
Many of the apps people have mentioned here can export PGN (as email), and many can do analysis as well (although the visibility of that analysis varies a bit).
Most of the apps are challenged when it comes to getting PGN from elsewhere. I can think of two exceptions:
Chess Genius ($9.99) - allows you to download PGN games (or databases) from the Internet to your iPhone/Touch. To use this feature, you need to be able to store the relevant PGN somewhere on the web (for instance in a public Dropbox folder), so that you can give Genius a link to it.
tChess Pro ($7.99) - allows you cut-&-paste PGN text (i.e. from an email, etc.) into a special window that loads the game onto the board for analysis, etc.
It's a close call, but of the two, I'd probably recommend tChess Pro.
Note that (as far as I can tell, anyway) there is no iPhone chess app that can handle annotated PGN or multiple lines/variations. Both of the apps above, for instance, automatically parse out any commentary or variations as you load them into the game-view.
(A relative new-comer, Mastersoft Chess, seems in its current version to include at least a foundation for supporting variations and annotation--see for instance, the second screenshot from the left here--but in ver. 1 there doesn't actually seem to be any way to enter comments or edit the PGN in any way, other than via the game-board. And there's no way I can figure out to create variation lines. I'm checking with Support to see if this is a partially implemented feature or what...)
Cheers
Nov 9, 2009
0
#179
As regards the original question, here's my most long-winded 2-cents-worth to date:
http://blog.chess.com/DeepGreene/the-kings-of-iphone-chess
Cheers
@DeepGreene
thanks excellent summary
after reading your text I have tried DeepGreen... and I must say that all in all chess apps on iPhone just doesn't seem right to me :(
I have bought all of them (but Caissa), and none of them (maybe Chess Genius alone) feels like old Palm/WM "real" chess programs... they cannot play themselves, they cannot branch, they cannot import PGN files, they have small pieces which must be moved with my clunky fingers, they have non-optimized interface etc. and they have less features than Palm counterpart (most prominent example: HIARCS)
I do like that iPhone chess apps are strong opponents and - thanks to fast processor - they don't take ages to move... but I can't beat them on highest setting anyway... it is their downfall too however - last week I was replaying some recent games on DeepGreen (pure eyecandy... however it has smallest board/pieces too so it is sometimes hard to move a piece) and - even without analysis turned on - it drowned my battery by almost a half in a bit more than an hour... and then I was forced to stop playing because iPhone is my phone in the first place so it can't be off for half a day just because I played some chess and then battery died...
so I decided to buy an old Palm and HIARCS for Palm... maybe it will be slower, but it will be true dedicated portable chess (I believe) with more than 8h of constant analysis in case of m515 (for example)... and it will cost me approx. $60 - the same amount I have spent on iPhone chess apps...
chess apps for iPhone are great in terms of "having a strong opponent in one's pocket" without need for additional piece of equipment, but they are unsatisfactory on the long run - at least in my opinion... so I won't buy any iPhone chess app ever again...
I just pitted Glaurung against HIARCS and HIARCS prevailed.