Daily iPhone chess programs releases

[tiger]

You can blame Apple for this.

Ironically, the iPad's resolution is larger in both X and Y than the retina iPhone's. So one can wonder why Apple does not display retina iPhone apps in full resolution on the iPad.

I can't think of a single technical reason not to do so.

But don't worry, it looks like very soon even iPad apps will look blocky on the next iPad.


// Christophe

[tiger]

Just what I needed. One question dredges back to page one all the chess for iphone, ChessTiger and Theron crap.


Nausea regards,

gts

Thanks! So tasty it makes me almost regret I don't come here more often.


// Christophe

[mar]

You can blame Apple for this.

Ironically, the iPad's resolution is larger in both X and Y than the retina iPhone's. So one can wonder why Apple does not display retina iPhone apps in full resolution on the iPad.

I can't think of a single technical reason not to do so.

But don't worry, it looks like very soon even iPad apps will look blocky on the next iPad.


// Christophe

Hi Christophe,
the problem is that iPad has a 4:3 resolution while the iPhone has 3:2.
This would result in ugly blur (because of bilinear filter).
I think 1:1 with border looks much better even if not perfect.

Martin

[Don]

You can blame Apple for this.

Ironically, the iPad's resolution is larger in both X and Y than the retina iPhone's. So one can wonder why Apple does not display retina iPhone apps in full resolution on the iPad.

I can't think of a single technical reason not to do so.

But don't worry, it looks like very soon even iPad apps will look blocky on the next iPad.


// Christophe

Hi Christophe,
the problem is that iPad has a 4:3 resolution while the iPhone has 3:2.
This would result in ugly blur (because of bilinear filter).
I think 1:1 with border looks much better even if not perfect.

Martin

At some point GUI's should be designed with vector graphics all the way around. For speed I'm sure individual objects could be cached. Maybe that doesn't look quite as good as custom designed for the exact resolution but it would solve the problem. Perhaps individual objects could still be designed for specific target resolutions.

When the aspect ratio is different, such as 4:3 going to 3:2 it's going to always be out of proportion of course but it's crazy that you have to design for an infinite number of possible future screen sizes.

I'm not a graphics or GUI expert so I'm thinking there is a reason this is not done, perhaps for performance reasons? I also know that small objects tend to not look good unless they are custom designed for the exact target size - maybe that problem is too serious?

[mar]

At some point GUI's should be designed with vector graphics all the way around. For speed I'm sure individual objects could be cached. Maybe that doesn't look quite as good as custom designed for the exact resolution but it would solve the problem. Perhaps individual objects could still be designed for specific target resolutions.

When the aspect ratio is different, such as 4:3 going to 3:2 it's going to always be out of proportion of course but it's crazy that you have to design for an infinite number of possible future screen sizes.

I'm not a graphics or GUI expert so I'm thinking there is a reason this is not done, perhaps for performance reasons? I also know that small objects tend to not look good unless they are custom designed for the exact target size - maybe that problem is too serious?

Neither I am an expert. But all your points are perfectly valid IMHO
The preferable would be to cache (render) anti-aliased vector graphics into bitmaps unless they would be too small. In that case a pixel artist is needed.
Of course if your art has not been designed as vectors you have a problem.
Another less trivial problem however is positioning of individual GUI elements. I remember working at a company which wrote software for various PDAs and we had a layout editor where we positioned the elements individually for each type of resolution. Of course it was crazy. But it looked always the way we wanted on all devices.

Martin

[Steve Maughan]

...At some point GUI's should be designed with vector graphics all the way around. For speed I'm sure individual objects could be cached....

This is exactly what FireMonkey does. FireMonkey is the multiplatform framework for Delphi / Pascal. I think it has got a good chance of succeeding as most devices now have good graphical processors.

Steve

[tiger]

1:1 with black border uses the LOW iPhone resolution and then doubles the pixels, resulting in the blockiness you can see.

1:1 with black borders using the retina resolution would result in apps the same size as they currently are using the 2x button, but with no blockyness at all.

It's a mystery that Apple doesn't do that instead of using a lower resolution and then doubling the pixels.

My opinion is that it is done on purpose, to pressure developers into creating specific iPad apps.

I can understand that, but users should also understand that it's not making life easier for developers.


// Christophe

[tiger]

For this specific case, the reason is mostly commercial.

Apple wants developers to create apps specifically for the iPad.

With the graphic processing power already available since the first iPad, real time resizing is possible and even if it's not perfect it would be better than using the lowest iPhone resolution and then expanding it (without antialiasing!) 2x in each dimension.

Just using the iPhone high resolution and displaying 1:1 would be better, but they don't even do that!!!


// Christophe

[arenati]

I've just got an iPhone 4.
i would like to know which commercial and free apps do you suggest.
i'm interested in game playing not analysis.

if i'm no wrong there was a Komodo for iPhone in development. Any time frame for the release?

Thanks

[JuLieN]

I've just got an iPhone 4.
i would like to know which commercial and free apps do you suggest.
i'm interested in game playing not analysis.

if i'm no wrong there was a Komodo for iPhone in development. Any time frame for the release?

Thanks

Congrats Alfonso!

Right now I'll have a hard time answering you because all my chess applications were on my iPad, but I sold it last week and am waiting for the iPad 3 ^^

I'll try to remember, though. I probably had several hundred of chess apps on my iPad, but I had a "best of" drawer with my favorite ones. IIRC in here you could find:

- Chess: Battle of the Elements (Beautiful!)
- Chess Genius
- Chess (Christophe Théron's Tiger)
- Chess Wise
- Fritz chess
- Hiarcs
- iChess Pack (one of the best FICS interfaces I saw, all platforms considered)
- iGrandMaster (strong with an interface I like)
- Little Green Chess
- Morph Chess 3D (good while waiting for the new Battle Chess)
- Shredder (my other favorite: very good interface)
- StockFish
- tChessPro (probably the best chess application: reasonably strong with the best interface there is)

There were others, but my memory fails me

The AppStore is a jungle, and IIRC there are over 600 chess programs, so that was a VERY limited "best of" selection: there are many other good applications. But with those ones you can't be wrong.