Abaia: A new iPhone chess program

[Tord Romstad]

...my plan is therefore to throw out the bitboard internals of Glaurung and replace them with something more mobile-friendly....

How much stronger do you think it will become as a result of that?

I expect it to more than double the speed. The Elo difference should end up around 80 points, I guess.

How much time do you think such a change would require? (Pardon my drooling.)

Very difficult to estimate. It probably wouldn't require a lot of development time, but because I have too many other computer chess projects and too many hobbies, I expect it to take several months. I'm one of those people who always try to do too many things at once, and therefore never end up doing anything really well. My program is unlikely to ever be more than an interesting proof of concept.

Also: do you have any test results against the strongest programs on other handheld platforms, like Hiarcs on the Palm or Pocket Fritz on the PocketPC?

No, I don't, but the results wouldn't have been very impressive, I'm afraid.

Tord

[ardee]

It's the strongest of numerous iPhone chess apps and you have a plan to make it 80 points stronger? I'd say you've WAY exceeded the "proof of concept" level already!

[ardee]

Just a quick suggestion. I noticed you decided to use dragging as the method of move entry. I wonder if its too much to allow an option for clicking (ie. from square -> to square).

IMO this method has been used quite successfully in other programs.

I'm all for freedom of choice so in that regard I agree. However, I strongly prefer dragging pieces so I'm feeling lucky that dragging was the first choice. (The lack of dragging support was the reason I couldn't get accustomed to using Hiarcs on the Palm, strong though it was. Have they fixed that yet??)

Of course it's just a personal preference and diversity makes the world go around, but dragging always seemed to me to better simulate the idea of picking up a piece, moving it to its new square, and dropping it there. Clicking source and destination squares just never "clicked" with me. [I know that in the early days of standalone chess computers, they charged a lot more for ones where you didn't have to tap the source and destination squares but could pick up the piece and put it down on its new square.]

[Tord Romstad]

It's the strongest of numerous iPhone chess apps and you have a plan to make it 80 points stronger?

I hope to do so in the distant future, yes -- but at that time, there will be other strong iPhone chess apps on the market.

By the way, replacing the low-level data structures and improving the speed doesn't have top priority at the moment. Before I start working on that, I have a new feature I would like to implement which -- if I manage to make it work as well as I hope -- will make an 80 point increase in Elo seem like a mundane and unimportant improvement.

Because I want this new feature to be a surprise, I won't tell you more about it at this stage. Those of you who have guessed, please keep the guesses for yourself.

I'd say you've WAY exceeded the "proof of concept" level already!

You're saying that because you haven't experienced the bugs or rough edges yet.

Tord

[Tord Romstad]

Just a quick suggestion. I noticed you decided to use dragging as the method of move entry. I wonder if its too much to allow an option for clicking (ie. from square -> to square).

IMO this method has been used quite successfully in other programs.

I'm all for freedom of choice so in that regard I agree. However, I strongly prefer dragging pieces so I'm feeling lucky that dragging was the first choice. (The lack of dragging support was the reason I couldn't get accustomed to using Hiarcs on the Palm, strong though it was. Have they fixed that yet??)

I also prefer dragging, but as Glaurung and Abaia now support both move input methods, I hope everybody should be happy.

Tord