Testing Stockfish, Lc0, Banksia GUI for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iWatch)

[chrisw]

How do the different versions of the Apple Watch behave concerning the engines on the hardware ?
Is there a need for the latest generation 6 or is the SE also usable ?

Is it possible to play chess with the banksia chess gui on the Apple Watch ?
What do I need ?
Can I move with the Fingers ?
Which Engines run ?
Please more information.

Which Apple Watch is how fast / Strong for chess engines ?

- Yes, we can play chess with BanksiaGUI for Apple Watch. Based on the benchmark, it is clearly hard for a human to vs engines on Apple Watch
- All you need is an Apple watch running from watchOS version 7.0. I have tried on Apple Watch 6 only but I believe older ones could run too if they can upgrade to watchOS 7. Of course the later the better
- Definitely, you can use your fingers to control/play chess. The app can automatically zoom up the board size so users can easily use it even with big fingers
- The first version comes with 8 top-open-source chess engines, listed in the previous page

Donwloaded the iWatch version just as soon as I saw this. Very nice but I found the move input unusable, jumping from small to large screen, although I’m no novice to unplayable mobile chess programs (I can claim first ever mobile chess and first ever unplayable mobile chess, we did for Nokia back in last century, although they were very pleased with it. Text only screen KQRBNP and we could only get four lines of text, so the board used two screen pages - hopeless). Apart from that, yours is a very brilliant piece of work. Well done.
Voice recognition move input ought to be possible? Or finger the destination square, most moves work with that, else light up the origin square for another finger?

[mclane]

IMO using a finger makes only sense if the GUI directs the cursor to the legal moves possible .

E.g. customer presses g1 and hits area arround f1 or h1 and g2 (because finger is so big).
Gui sees f1 could be no move because the square is empty. But g1 , Rh1 cannot move because it has no square, g2 could be a pawn move g2g3 or g2g4.

Now the GUI automatically highlights g3 and g4. F3 and h3 and e2 because the pawn and the knight can move to these squares. And the user can now try to hit the target square.

I have a chess app on my android watch and there it IS possible to enter moves when the gui helps a little by interpret the squares in an intelligent way.

I would put ALL info on a separate screen, e.g. swipe left or right and get search info, move list or any other information.

I am also no fan of this zoom in zoom out stuff.

[phhnguyen]

How do the different versions of the Apple Watch behave concerning the engines on the hardware ?
Is there a need for the latest generation 6 or is the SE also usable ?

Is it possible to play chess with the banksia chess gui on the Apple Watch ?
What do I need ?
Can I move with the Fingers ?
Which Engines run ?
Please more information.

Which Apple Watch is how fast / Strong for chess engines ?

- Yes, we can play chess with BanksiaGUI for Apple Watch. Based on the benchmark, it is clearly hard for a human to vs engines on Apple Watch
- All you need is an Apple watch running from watchOS version 7.0. I have tried on Apple Watch 6 only but I believe older ones could run too if they can upgrade to watchOS 7. Of course the later the better
- Definitely, you can use your fingers to control/play chess. The app can automatically zoom up the board size so users can easily use it even with big fingers
- The first version comes with 8 top-open-source chess engines, listed in the previous page

Donwloaded the iWatch version just as soon as I saw this. Very nice but I found the move input unusable, jumping from small to large screen, although I’m no novice to unplayable mobile chess programs (I can claim first ever mobile chess and first ever unplayable mobile chess, we did for Nokia back in last century, although they were very pleased with it. Text only screen KQRBNP and we could only get four lines of text, so the board used two screen pages - hopeless). Apart from that, yours is a very brilliant piece of work. Well done.
Voice recognition move input ought to be possible? Or finger the destination square, most moves work with that, else light up the origin square for another finger?

Can you explain why the input is unusable? What is the difficulty to make your moves? Are you aware that you can swipe the screen to see unseen squares and then touch any of them to make the move? If you don't like auto jumping between small-large boards, you can set the board as always large (use a button below the board, scroll up the screen to find it).

The watch screen is so tiny, if the board is just to fit the screen, cells' size becomes so small, almost we all can't touch correctly to the square we want with fingers only. The watch doesn't have a keyboard nor a pen to enter a move via text. If we use buttons (for texting moves) we need at least 16 buttons, not easy to display and use on that tiny screen either.

I have considered using the Siri library to help void recognition, but the problem when working Siri will display its icon full screen (you can't see the board), and changing between Siri and board may be much slower and harder than the current input method. I have been still finding/working on that solution.

[chrisw]

How do the different versions of the Apple Watch behave concerning the engines on the hardware ?
Is there a need for the latest generation 6 or is the SE also usable ?

Is it possible to play chess with the banksia chess gui on the Apple Watch ?
What do I need ?
Can I move with the Fingers ?
Which Engines run ?
Please more information.

Which Apple Watch is how fast / Strong for chess engines ?

- Yes, we can play chess with BanksiaGUI for Apple Watch. Based on the benchmark, it is clearly hard for a human to vs engines on Apple Watch
- All you need is an Apple watch running from watchOS version 7.0. I have tried on Apple Watch 6 only but I believe older ones could run too if they can upgrade to watchOS 7. Of course the later the better
- Definitely, you can use your fingers to control/play chess. The app can automatically zoom up the board size so users can easily use it even with big fingers
- The first version comes with 8 top-open-source chess engines, listed in the previous page

Donwloaded the iWatch version just as soon as I saw this. Very nice but I found the move input unusable, jumping from small to large screen, although I’m no novice to unplayable mobile chess programs (I can claim first ever mobile chess and first ever unplayable mobile chess, we did for Nokia back in last century, although they were very pleased with it. Text only screen KQRBNP and we could only get four lines of text, so the board used two screen pages - hopeless). Apart from that, yours is a very brilliant piece of work. Well done.
Voice recognition move input ought to be possible? Or finger the destination square, most moves work with that, else light up the origin square for another finger?

Can you explain why the input is unusable? What is the difficulty to make your moves? Are you aware that you can swipe the screen to see unseen squares and then touch any of them to make the move? If you don't like auto jumping between small-large boards, you can set the board as always large (use a button below the board, scroll up the screen to find it).

The watch screen is so tiny, if the board is just to fit the screen, cells' size becomes so small, almost we all can't touch correctly to the square we want with fingers only. The watch doesn't have a keyboard nor a pen to enter a move via text. If we use buttons (for texting moves) we need at least 16 buttons, not easy to display and use on that tiny screen either.

I have considered using the Siri library to help void recognition, but the problem when working Siri will display its icon full screen (you can't see the board), and changing between Siri and board may be much slower and harder than the current input method. I have been still finding/working on that solution.

Impossible because I see the chess board as a whole-thing. I understand it as an environment. But when I finger a square, suddenly the environment changes to some 4x4 subset which is a kind of alien environment where I have to rethink what is what and where, and I’m completely thrown, my concentration pattern is badly disturbed and can hardly remember the move I want to do.
Voice input would work, although I might find sitting in a post-Covid plane and dictating chess moves into my watch a bit weird as well. Whisper voice input. Or maybe it’s just asking too much if a mini-screen size. Although, the finger recognition does seem accurate enough to get the origin square, so why the need to jump to large screen at all? Why not just light up the destinations and expect another small screen finger?

[mclane]

I have emerald chess on my moto smartwatch.
When i press on e2 it shows e3 and e4 green, e2 blue and waits which move i press.
I press e4 and the move gets logged in and it answers e.g. Nc6.
I press on g1 and it gets blue, e2, f3 and h3 gets green and it waits for my choice.

The whole time the size of the board remains the same.

Wearable chess similar.

There when i swipe to the left i get menue with „new game“ and other choices , change engine, level, take back, ...
I would now say swiping to the right could show infos.

This works ...

It’s disapointing so few android watches can run chess engines.
Ok android clocks are not so strong in cpu they use, maybe iwatch has stronger cpu.

Guys. I bought extra for banskia apple watch app an apple watch4 and an iphone.
Normally i do use android stuff.

But i saw the potential in banksia chess gui and the environment.

Make something out of it

[phhnguyen]

I have emerald chess on my moto smartwatch.
When i press on e2 it shows e3 and e4 green, e2 blue and waits which move i press.
I press e4 and the move gets logged in and it answers e.g. Nc6.
I press on g1 and it gets blue, e2, f3 and h3 gets green and it waits for my choice.

The whole time the size of the board remains the same.

Wearable chess similar.

There when i swipe to the left i get menue with „new game“ and other choices , change engine, level, take back, ...
I would now say swiping to the right could show infos.

This works ...

It’s disapointing so few android watches can run chess engines.
Ok android clocks are not so strong in cpu they use, maybe iwatch has stronger cpu.

Guys. I bought extra for banskia apple watch app an apple watch4 and an iphone.
Normally i do use android stuff.

But i saw the potential in banksia chess gui and the environment.

Make something out of it

Thanks for the report. I will be back to work on that issue soon.