Daily iPhone chess programs releases

[Tord Romstad]

The name is not important. Look, you can have a horrible and nonsensical name like "Stockfish" and still be popular.

True, but actually the iOS version is named "Stockfish chess", in order to make it easier to find accidentally when searching for chess programs on the app store. I have several friends with iPhones who wanted a chess program, downloaded the most promising looking free program they could find, and discovered to their surprise that I am the author (most of my friends don't know I'm a chess programmer).

Thanks a lot for the new version! The only thing I'm missing now is iPad support.

[Mike S.]

In your opinion, is the simulator counting the time correctly?

Yes, I have even checked it with my watch now for 60 seconds. It looks 100% correct.

The free simulator I found (apparantly done by Palm themselves or Palmsource) is available from various download pages, e.g.

http://simulator-palm-os-cobalt.en.softonic.com/palm

It does not require installation: Just unzip into a directory. The simulator settings (like memory size, screen resolution...) are available from a right-click menu. Palm Tiger is installed simply by drag & drop of the two files into the simulator window.

Then, after the individual adjustments like colors, hash size etc. have been done, it will be best to save the entire status of the Palm simulation into an .ssf file. That is also available from the context menu --> Storage. For the next time, the simulator can be started "freshly" but then that .ssf file should be loaded, and the session, Palm- and Tiger settings will be re-established as they were saved.

It is also possible to add an .ssf file to the Windows shortcut (in "Target"), for example:

Code: Select all

C:\Programme\PalmSim61\PalmSim.exe -storagesnapshotfile:PalmTiger.ssf

(With shortcut and .ssf file in the same program directory where PalmSim.exe is. That works here.)

There is a file ...Tips.txt included, with some general infos and keyboad shortcuts. From that, I found most useful to add

Code: Select all

PreferredLocale=deDE ;or any other language from many available
AppCreator=lnch

to the PalmSim.ini, which avoids having to repeat language and time/date settings on start.

As for the magnified mode, it is possible to use the landscape orientation sized 2:1 even if the Windows desktop resolution is too small for portrait orientation. There is a "nag" error message but it can be ignored, in that case.

As mentioned, I cannot get "HotSync" to work which seems to be an issue of the (simulated) connection. Also, I do not understand the Palm hardware simulation and device related stuff.

I did not find any information about the simulated hardware speed (x MHz and/or Palm CPU type). Maybe it depends on the PC's cpu? Apparantly I get a speed similar to a Palm at ~60 MHz. My cpu is a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz.

[tiger]

In your opinion, is the simulator counting the time correctly?

Yes, I have even checked it with my watch now for 60 seconds. It looks 100% correct.

The free simulator I found (apparantly done by Palm themselves or Palmsource) is available from various download pages, e.g.

http://simulator-palm-os-cobalt.en.softonic.com/palm

It does not require installation: Just unzip into a directory. The simulator settings (like memory size, screen resolution...) are available from a right-click menu. Palm Tiger is installed simply by drag & drop of the two files into the simulator window.

Then, after the individual adjustments like colors, hash size etc. have been done, it will be best to save the entire status of the Palm simulation into an .ssf file. That is also available from the context menu --> Storage. For the next time, the simulator can be started "freshly" but then that .ssf file should be loaded, and the session, Palm- and Tiger settings will be re-established as they were saved.

It is also possible to add an .ssf file to the Windows shortcut (in "Target"), for example:

Code: Select all

C:\Programme\PalmSim61\PalmSim.exe -storagesnapshotfile:PalmTiger.ssf

(With shortcut and .ssf file in the same program directory where PalmSim.exe is. That works here.)

There is a file ...Tips.txt included, with some general infos and keyboad shortcuts. From that, I found most useful to add

Code: Select all

PreferredLocale=deDE ;or any other language from many available
AppCreator=lnch

to the PalmSim.ini, which avoids having to repeat language and time/date settings on start.

As for the magnified mode, it is possible to use the landscape orientation sized 2:1 even if the Windows desktop resolution is too small for portrait orientation. There is a "nag" error message but it can be ignored, in that case.

As mentioned, I cannot get "HotSync" to work which seems to be an issue of the (simulated) connection. Also, I do not understand the Palm hardware simulation and device related stuff.

I did not find any information about the simulated hardware speed (x MHz and/or Palm CPU type). Maybe it depends on the PC's cpu? Apparantly I get a speed similar to a Palm at ~60 MHz. My cpu is a Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz.

Thank you Mike.

I have saved this for future use.


// Christophe

[tiger]

The name is not important. Look, you can have a horrible and nonsensical name like "Stockfish" and still be popular.

True, but actually the iOS version is named "Stockfish chess", in order to make it easier to find accidentally when searching for chess programs on the app store. I have several friends with iPhones who wanted a chess program, downloaded the most promising looking free program they could find, and discovered to their surprise that I am the author (most of my friends don't know I'm a chess programmer).

Thanks a lot for the new version! The only thing I'm missing now is iPad support.

Actually I'm wondering why you use Chess Tiger. You have developped your own chess program for the same platform...

Just wondering.


// Christophe

[M ANSARI]

I installed Chess Tiger for the iPhone and must say I like it. At the highest level it seems to give a reasonably good game but still is beatable at the fast play setting. The highest ELO strength I see is 2090, is that the maximum or is there higher settings than that? It seems that the highest strength should be at least 2500 ELO. I have a 4G iPhone and the strength sort of feels like how chess engines were in the Pentium 90 era ... which is that you can actually win a game every once in a while. My guess is that the Ipad2 and the a new release of Iphone 5G is going to spoil all the fun with their much more powerful hardware.

Another point is battery life. I noticed that with some chess Iphone applications that it is best to force kill the program. Every application you start in the Iphone keeps running in the background even when you leave it. That causes an incredible drain on batteries (especially if an engine is running). You can force kill background tasks by double clicking the center button, and then when you see the background programs come up ... press one of them for a couple of seconds until you see a "-" sign in red on them. You can then quickly close each task. I find that helps dramatically in increasing your battery life.

[tiger]

I installed Chess Tiger for the iPhone and must say I like it. At the highest level it seems to give a reasonably good game but still is beatable at the fast play setting. The highest ELO strength I see is 2090, is that the maximum or is there higher settings than that? It seems that the highest strength should be at least 2500 ELO. I have a 4G iPhone and the strength sort of feels like how chess engines were in the Pentium 90 era ... which is that you can actually win a game every once in a while. My guess is that the Ipad2 and the a new release of Iphone 5G is going to spoil all the fun with their much more powerful hardware.

Another point is battery life. I noticed that with some chess Iphone applications that it is best to force kill the program. Every application you start in the Iphone keeps running in the background even when you leave it. That causes an incredible drain on batteries (especially if an engine is running). You can force kill background tasks by double clicking the center button, and then when you see the background programs come up ... press one of them for a couple of seconds until you see a "-" sign in red on them. You can then quickly close each task. I find that helps dramatically in increasing your battery life.

2090 USCF elo (or 2100 FIDE elo) is the highest trainer setting. It means that it is the highest level where the engine strength is constrained.

As soon as you use the "Game in X minutes" or "Move in X seconds" settings, the strength is not limited at all, and Chess Tiger is close to 2700 elo.

I thought it was clear because the mode with limited strength is called "Me vs Trainer".


About the program running in the background: you have NO battery drain to fear. Once in the background, Chess Tiger is totally frozen. Absolutely nothing is executed until you return to the program.

Only programs that are designed and allowed to do things in the background could in theory cause a little battery drain. But in practice, once a program is in the background it is either totally frozen (like Chess Tiger for example) or just allowed very minimal use of resource, for example to play music or maintain an internet link.

This has been done by design by Apple. Apps in the background are totally different on the iPhone than on a Mac or PC for example.

On the iPhone they are extremely limited in what they can do. Actually they are too limited. Skype for example is barely able to maintain its connexion. Other IM programs have problems has well because of this.

If an app in the background managed to use a little bit more resources, the OS would simply kill it.


// Christophe

[Milos]

This has been done by design by Apple. Apps in the background are totally different on the iPhone than on a Mac or PC for example.

On the iPhone they are extremely limited in what they can do. Actually they are too limited. Skype for example is barely able to maintain its connexion. Other IM programs have problems has well because of this.

If an app in the background managed to use a little bit more resources, the OS would simply kill it.

That's because iphone 4 doesn't support real multitasking. It only saves the current state of each application that is in the background, but does not execute it. Only specific services are actually executed in the background.

[M ANSARI]

I am pretty sure keeping programs in the background can hurt battery life. I had just bought one of the extra battery packs that acts like a case that also increases battery life 3x. Problem was it made the phone much heavier, which was ok for travelling but not fun for everyday use. By turning off all the background tasks, plus following some of the tweaks suggested on youtube I managed 100% improvement in battery life and now my phone can easily go a full day with no problems. How much of that is attributed to not having a background task, I am not sure, but it does seem to help not having them there. It will be interesting to see how the battery life of the latest A5 chip will be. It is supposedly a huge jump in hardware processing ability, but I just hope battery life will not suffer. For long trips the battery pack cases are really great especially since chess engines drain the battery quite quickly.

[tiger]

This has been done by design by Apple. Apps in the background are totally different on the iPhone than on a Mac or PC for example.

On the iPhone they are extremely limited in what they can do. Actually they are too limited. Skype for example is barely able to maintain its connexion. Other IM programs have problems has well because of this.

If an app in the background managed to use a little bit more resources, the OS would simply kill it.

That's because iphone 4 doesn't support real multitasking. It only saves the current state of each application that is in the background, but does not execute it. Only specific services are actually executed in the background.

Don't forget that the iOS kernel is a real Unix kernel. Multitasking is supported and a number of daemons are running in the background all the time (it does not mean they are using CPU all the time, they are awaken when necessary).

So by default any program would have been multitasking in the background if the engineers at Apple had not established restrictions.

You are absolutely right about specific services allowed to run while the rest of the application is frozen.

This concept is really different than what people are used to on a Mac or PC, so the belief that "many applications opened" equals "more battery drain" still persists.


// Christophe

[JuLieN]

Daily chess for iOS news : ChessBase on the iPhone/iPad

This is not stricto sensu a chess program, but as Chessbase is a major actor in our hobby I'll post this anyway.

ChessBase just released a universal app (iPhone/iPad) to access their online chess games database. The application being quite costly (3.99 euros), and not matching my needs, I didn't buy it. So I'll just copy/paste their description and add a screenshot :

Description
ChessBase Online is the world's leading database of chess games. It contains 5 million games including all top tournaments ever played. The database is updated weekly.

- Easy move entering.
- Search for any opening position.
- Search for games of any player.
- Very fast database response.
- Supports landscape and portrait orientation.
- Move statistics for any opening position.
- Full game notation shown.

ChessBase on an iPhone:

The App looks very clean.

And on an iPad:






iTunes link : http://itunes.apple.com/app/id417726752#