There are completely separate iOS and Android developer teams. The languages used are different and I don't believe any cross platform development tools are being used, so each feature has to be written for the specific environment. I believe in the past each team has been relatively small as well, so there are limitations on how much and what work gets done
In addition, I believe the update process for iOS is more in depth and it takes longer to get updates through the Apple approval process.
Thanks! But, there’s still something I don’t quite understand. iOS does still get updates, though they are mostly bug fixes. Meanwhile, Android gets features early, sometimes even before the website. What’s the difference between Android and iOS that causes this? Chess.com is updating the app, yet intentionally leaving us without important features. It’s not like they can’t update the app, because they do. They update it quite often, in fact, usually with “bug fixes and improvements.” Something else is going on…
Fair Play is one of Chess.com’s top priorities, and while they do definitely take cheating seriously, they seem to be intentionally creating their own unfair disadvantage against iOS, and they’re basically handicapping a large part of their userbase, which honestly feels kind of counterintuitive… Is there a reason that iOS doesn’t get the same love as Android gets, when the team is definitely capable of updating the app, and it’d cost very little (in relation to brand new features) to create a level and fair playing field for all? I’ve never understood that.
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Right now, the Chess.com iOS app is significantly worse than both the Android app and website, with features like multiple premoves and the ability to set conditional moves, exclusively absent from iOS. (Present everywhere except on the iOS app.) This gives iOS users a big disadvantage against everyone else. And I never understood why, especially since one of Chess.com’s priorities is to create an equal playing field for everyone.
These features have already been coded for the Android app, so it can’t take much more than a week or two to add these features if done on the side. It also probably wouldn’t cost that much to do, since, well, the code is already written. Plus, these have been requested features for over eight years now, and people knowing that their voices are heard might push them to subscribe, since the company seems to care about them.
Essentially, adding features to iOS that we (and we only) have been missing for many years, seems like a win-win for everyone involved, even from a corporate standpoint, where money is a priority. It levels the disadvantage that iOS has against everyone else, and, if looked at from the company’s perspective, it would not only take very little time and money, it will help users feel heard, and maybe even get them to spend more money because of that.
So, why haven’t they added this yet? Why do they keep insisting that it’s “on the roadmap”, but never delivers, when there is such little cost and so many benefits to everyone involved? I genuinely don’t understand.
Will iOS ever reach equality, and what’s their reasoning for having not done it so far? I’d love to hear some theories!