Stockfish for iPad

[Tord Romstad]

Thanks,

I just downloaded it and played some Blitz Games. It works well.

Great!

I'm curious. Are you able to see the number of Downloads, and break it down by device type?

Yes, I can see the number of downloads (updated daily), but not broken down by device type. I suppose this wouldn't have been possible: It's just a single binary for all devices, and many users don't download directly to the device, but through iTunes on their Mac or PC. In such cases, it's obviously not possible to guess what device(s) the user intends to run the program on.

In case someone is curious, the number of downloads the last day before the update with iPad support (the statistics for the new version are not yet available; I guess they'll be there tomorrow) was 122. This is quite normal. It seems that most commercial chess programmers are still not aware of how huge this market is. Mobile devices are by far the dominant platform for computer chess. Trying to sell a UCI engine makes very little sense from a commercial point of view: You can earn far more money with just a fraction of the work by focusing on mobile platforms. Outside this message board, hardly anyone plays chess on their PCs.

[Cubeman]

Hi Tord, thanks for the new version, just one little wish for any future version is to have the ability to load next game from a PGN file.Currently you have to load a game then choose the file then choose the game in the list and then choose load game, then to look at the next game/position you have to do all this again which is hard if the file contains 1000's of positions.
Also when a file is loaded the position on board is automatically showing the final position, which is a shame if you want to test your self on some mate 1 or 2 etc, cant it be done that the position is shown from the start of the variation?

[kinderchocolate]

I agree. Why don't you charge for your program, you could make a fortunate!

[Tord Romstad]

Hi Tord, thanks for the new version, just one little wish for any future version is to have the ability to load next game from a PGN file.

It's a little difficult to find a good place for it in the user interface, at least on the iPhone. The menus and dialogs are already a little more cluttered than I would like. Would a little tick next to the currently loaded game in the game list do?

Currently you have to load a game then choose the file then choose the game in the list and then choose load game, then to look at the next game/position you have to do all this again which is hard if the file contains 1000's of positions.

Loading PGNs containing thousands of games is probably a bad idea anyway, because it will take the program ages to open the file, and because it would be hopeless to find the game you want without sophisticated searching and filtering functions. Nevertheless, I see your point.

Also when a file is loaded the position on board is automatically showing the final position, which is a shame if you want to test your self on some mate 1 or 2 etc, cant it be done that the position is shown from the start of the variation?

Perhaps. I like opening the game at the final position because it makes it easier to see whether I've loaded the right game. A better solution, which I have considered for a while, would be to open at the start of the game, but show some sort of fast animated preview of the game when selecting it from the game list. This would be neat, except when what you want to load isn't really a game, but some sort of problem, which is precisely the case you are interested in.

Of course it would also be possible to present a dialog asking whether you want to start at the beginning or the end of the game when you select a game from the list, but I don't want to annoy the user with too many stupid questions and dialogs.

I'll consider both of your features, but as usual I can't promise anything yet. Adding all features users want while keeping the user interface simple and elegant on a tiny screen operated with fat fingers is a hard task.

[Tord Romstad]

I agree. Why don't you charge for your program, you could make a fortunate!

This question comes up from time to time. The simple answer is that I already have a job which pays my bills and more than adequately covers my rather modest needs, and thus charging for my chess program would only mean more stress, responsibilities and paperwork for no real benefit. Chess programming is just a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun, not stressful.

[michiguel]

I agree. Why don't you charge for your program, you could make a fortunate!

This question comes up from time to time. The simple answer is that I already have a job which pays my bills and more than adequately covers my rather modest needs, and thus charging for my chess program would only mean more stress, responsibilities and paperwork for no real benefit. Chess programming is just a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun, not stressful.

Tord,

You should put the above paragraph in your signature

Miguel

[Cubeman]

Hi Tord, thanks for the new version, just one little wish for any future version is to have the ability to load next game from a PGN file.

It's a little difficult to find a good place for it in the user interface, at least on the iPhone. The menus and dialogs are already a little more cluttered than I would like. Would a little tick next to the currently loaded game in the game list do?

Currently you have to load a game then choose the file then choose the game in the list and then choose load game, then to look at the next game/position you have to do all this again which is hard if the file contains 1000's of positions.

Loading PGNs containing thousands of games is probably a bad idea anyway, because it will take the program ages to open the file, and because it would be hopeless to find the game you want without sophisticated searching and filtering functions. Nevertheless, I see your point.

Also when a file is loaded the position on board is automatically showing the final position, which is a shame if you want to test your self on some mate 1 or 2 etc, cant it be done that the position is shown from the start of the variation?

Perhaps. I like opening the game at the final position because it makes it easier to see whether I've loaded the right game. A better solution, which I have considered for a while, would be to open at the start of the game, but show some sort of fast animated preview of the game when selecting it from the game list. This would be neat, except when what you want to load isn't really a game, but some sort of problem, which is precisely the case you are interested in.

Of course it would also be possible to present a dialog asking whether you want to start at the beginning or the end of the game when you select a game from the list, but I don't want to annoy the user with too many stupid questions and dialogs.

I'll consider both of your features, but as usual I can't promise anything yet. Adding all features users want while keeping the user interface simple and elegant on a tiny screen operated with fat fingers is a hard task.

1:Perhaps the current "Load game" could be broken into 2 halves with "Load Game" on 1'st half and "Load next" on 2nd half.There is still lots of room on that screen to do this and I have big fingers.An alternative is to use a gesture based approach like swipe the "Load Game" to the right means next game and a swipe to the left means previous game.
2:I have loaded many files so far with between 1000 and 4000 positions and it seems fast at showing them but there is no numerical record of which game is which.Can't each database file have a number associated with each position, like 1,2 3 .....198 etc.Which is why the load next game could come in handy.
3:Loading game position from the end of the variation is quite unique to Stockfish, all other pda chess software I have tried, Shredder,Chess Genius,PocketGrandMaster, and PocketFritz all do it from the start.Won't the user know what game they are loading from the information in the headers anyway?
These suggestions of mine might only be of interest to people like me so I can understand your reasons for doing the thing the way you do.But I am sure that there are more people that would like these changes too.

[JamesCoons]

I just installed Stockfish for the iPad and I am very impressed. I had crashes trying to load some of my PGN files and saw one instance of the position in a game getting confused but I am sure these bugs can be fixed shortly. For analysis this is a great tool. I installed the source code and was able to run in the iPad simulator. Hopefully I will have some time in the future to help with some of the testing/debugging. Thanks again, for making this open source.

James Coons

[M ANSARI]

I installed it on my Ipad and it seems great. Nice to have native graphics instead of the Iphone graphics multiplied by 2. And you are absolutely right about mobile applications making a lot more sense to develop for than PC applications. I find myself using my mobile as a PC more and more each day. Mobile applications will be the future.