New iPad app design

@chesster_sharon: Are using the "default" sound settings, or are using one of the other "themed" settings?

To those of you who are providing constructive & thoughtful feedback, many thanks! Here's some info and responses:

Missing functionality:

Two things that are absent that will be making a come-back in the near future: Tournaments lists and manual position set-up in Computer mode.

The ability to examine a Tactic and then decide to skip it - basically getting rated for hand-picked tactics - was removed intentionally, since it's totally out of step with other platforms and creates this lop-sided opportunity for rating inflation.

As regards Live Seeks, the new app is fully contemporary with recent changes to the Live Chess Server itself, which uses "pools" to match like-rated users who want to play the same time-control. If you dig in to challenge configuration (Play screen > New Game button > Challenge > Create Challenge) you *can* adjust the settings, but please note that unrated games and non-standard time controls take much longer to match.

Not-missing functionality:

- If you want to see your opponent's profile, tap their avatar

- If you want to make a private note on a Daily game, pop over to the analysis board; the feature is there - along with Explorer and some other stuff

@chesster_sharon: Yes, what v3rb4lkiNt said... Are you using the standard sound-effects or one of the other ones. I thought I tested them all, but if the silence is happening on an irregular basis... that's weird. :) These are Live Blitz games? We'll keep trying to isolate this one.

@Witchman: Thanks for all the feedback. I cannot imagine what would have happened in the new version to affect lag calculations (as those are handled by the server), but I'll look into it. And into the inconsistent appearance of the Abort option as well. If you haven't moved, it should be there, provided you haven't been aborting so often, you get restricted, which can happen...

Privacy settings? User comments?

Other than setting Live Chat to Always, Never, and Friends Only, there are, as yet, no privacy settings in the app - so those would still have to be handled via the site, like always. Excellent point, though, and something that needs to be implemented for mobile.

Not sure what User Comments you are referring to... Users can already comment on Articles and Videos... Messages is coming very shortly... (?)

I would like to point out that the clocks should show the tenths decimal digit if the timer is below seconds.

I have won games with 0 seconds when they are actually in fact 0.1+ seconds left but i can't tell because the app does not show it

Seeing the comments on a user's profile.

Is there no way to have the older iPhone app still available for us? Why not have two versions and let the users pick what they want? I am also in software dev. This isn't a case of the standard "users will complain when there is an upgrade" yada yada. It's truly a case of not being happy with this upgrade for iPhone anyway. I track this forum, only I need to log in via my browser to view

It because I can't in the app. Fine. I load up my browser only to find a landing page on the chess.com homepage without an option to sign in. Then I have to click on a totally irrelevant link, just to find a login button so I can login on my browser to complain about the iPhone app.

Please bring back the old app and leave it there with all the "things you wanted to fix". Because it's the users who are using this and find themselves frustrated while you guys just work on trying to find a solution for users who were already happy with something you previously developed. Really backwards thinking there sorry but that's the way I feel about it. I keep hoping that today will be the day they roll back availability for iPhone of the last version. But no, not gonna happen.

Someone is being stubborn over there sticking to their guns and anyone who criticizes this upgrade is just thrown Into the batch of users "whining". Sorry but this upgrade was a flop for iPhone. Now we gotta sit and wait FOR THE CHANCE to have something that may never be as good as it once was. The team over there wants "constructive" feedback" to help improve on an app that's frustrating people. If the comments aren't "constructive" then their comments are just ranting. If availability of the previous app was an option. I would be playing chess and not be on te forum. I would have zero complaints and look forward to my evening games. But now, I'm not even playing, in here ranting about this upgrade hoping that maybe somehow someone will just provide an option to choose.

What if the feedback is legitimately being dissapointed? Sorry but is has to be said. On the iPhone this upgrade sucks. And you guys are gonna at hardball "too bad if our users do t like it, we're going ahead anyway." This upgrade feels like Windows 8. Everyone just weathering the storm of crap until we can hopefully enjoy it again. Kinda sucks, chess.com was the best app ever out there, and now I'm forced to use somehow I don't enjoy because there isn't anything better out there. I feel like someone who bought a Windows 8 laptop and can't change the OS.

If you want to skip to the next game, just put your thumb (or finger) below (or above) the chessboard, and swipe left.

Swiping right will (predictably) go back to the previous game. :)

@jabronii: you can "swipe" to the next game on both the ipad and iphone. iphone is a little trickier, and I figured if you can do it on the ipad then it should work on the iphone. 

So after a few tries, I found that if you try swiping left or right just above the board or just below the board it moves to the next game.

DeepGreene always beats me to it! oh well.

On iPhone now, missing from the old app:

1. There seems to be no indicator to show which of my opponents is online.
2. The moves are not being shown.

You can see indicators on your Friends screen, but yes, we need to implement them on the Play screen (etc.) as well.

Moves are displayed above the board, no?

Haha! Sorry 'bout that.

@Jabbuk, others...

I know for an absolute fact that nobody on our team wants to play hardball with people who are disappointed with the new app, or considers them whiners. We want everybody who loves chess to think our app is the most excellent thing that ever hit their iPhones and iPads, period. That was the principle we started with when we started the redesign: Let's make this thing as awesome as we can.

That meant two things:

1. A revolutionary departure from v2. The new app is exactly that: a completely new piece of software, with new code, new architecture, Retina-quality everything. And it has to be new, because the website, servers and APIs that power it are now quite different from what we had for v2.

The old app is showing its age, and even now, the fact that people are still using it is actually holding back things we want to do to improve Live Chess. Etc. Simply put, there is no "for free" option to keep both apps functional, long term.

2. The ".0" version is just the first step on the path. This is a foundation to build on, in a way v2 could not be. Forums, Messages, News, iPhone 6/6+ support, live event coverage, improved Themes: it's all going to happen now (because now it can)!

Anyway, at this point, I'm very happy with how the launch of the new app has gone. By the numbers, we can count the new bugs uncovered on one hand: proof that several months of back-and-forth with a team of ~150 beta-testers (to whom we are hugely grateful!), served us extremely well. I'm also buoyed by the fact we've had a lot of positive feedback on the visual designs and user-interface modernization since launching.

Everyone who worked on this app is a diehard iOS user, and this is an ongoing labor of love. My own personal use of Chess.com playing and learning features via the website is practically zero. Through many months, and 40 pre-release versions, we noticed the little things, bickered internally over minutiae, and tested heavily: we took quality seriously -- and selfishly too, because the issues we found were messing with our user experience.

So like I wrote above, it's a starting point - and we really do want and need to hear about what specifically makes this app less enjoyable and effective than it could be, and what concretely we can do to make it better. We're not writing people off as whiners; we're taking notes!

I love the new app!

Sorry - moves not displayed anywhere. I have iPhone 4s with ios 8.1.3

And still the moaners continue........

(Opening) Explorer is now available for online games on analysis board. Awesome. Don't tell my opponents though ;)

Lots of goodies on this update :)

I REALLY like this new rev. ! It's a huge imrovement from an already good thing.

Question: in the Explorer view there is a chart that lists possible moves. What should be the labaels (or headers) to the chart (so I know exactly what the numbers mean)?

Thanks!

Glad you like! The moves are sorted by popularity. The colored bars indicate % of White wins / Draws / Black wins in games where that move was played.