There is new app for iOS.

Pros

good problem collection including nice basic problems for absolute beginners(2000 problems included)
you can import/create/edit your own problems (first time for iOS v5 i think)
you can import/create/edit games including sgf zip archives, iTunes file transfer support
finally you can show variation tree for games

Cons

bugs
inconsistent UI behaviour
universal UI - not using full iPad capabilities
due to wasting space on iPad game comments are hard to use
same sorting for games as for problems = unusable for games = worst problem if you want to use this app for games archives
you need to read short help
sometimes help and reality arent same (example: edit mode for problems)
price

Result
Application with some good features bud need few more changes, especially with its price.
Anyway it is only choice for painless GoGoD or problems archive import.

How do you delete an erroneous post (I'm in edit -- but don't see where that is an option)

Could be a more helpful review with amplirfication of the cons. I would find overly vague ......

a) Bugs --- real bugs (program hangs, etc.) or "doesn't do what I expected it to" in some situations. There's a differet order of seriousness between those two.

b) same sorting --- you meant same collating specification or the two merged together.

c) help and reality are't the same -- may need some fairly concrete examples

d) price -- Here you really need to be concrete as people appear to differ greatly on what they consider a reasonable or unreasonable price for sofware.

I can answer d) It costs 9.99€ and only looking at the screenshots, it does not compare to SmartGo, so I think it is overpriced.

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Only way to delete is if there is no other post made afterwards. There is a "X" icon next to "!"(flag this post).

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Good Go = Shape.
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Import problems with big sgf or big batch sgf import. Solved with sgf zip archive import instead for batch import.


Same choices for both. Default, tried times, wrong times, correct times. This is unusable for game archives.



Example - in help you need to tap with 2 fingers on goban , in app you need to tap special icon and choose from menu.


There is maybe more but i wrote this after 2h use. For me, missing games sorting/searching is worst problem in this app.

Hi,

I'm Xiang Zhao, the author of EasyGo, glad to hear detailed reviews here.
EasyGo is a rather new app, I will improve it over time. Thank you for your support!

Multi collection SGF file, that is many sgf games in a sgf file, are not supported right now. Work around : first split it with other softwares on your desktop, then zip it for EasyGo importing.

Game ordering will be added in next release, please advise all the game ordering options you would like to have, thanks.
Game search will also be added.

As to the space wasted on ipad, please also advise what layout you would like. Please note the size of comment view and tree view can be adjusted (by tap setting button on the navigation bar). In portrait mode, I don't think any space is wasted. For landscape mode, currently, the IOS split view was used, thus the width of left view and right view can't be adjusted, anyway, as with the portrait mode, you are able to adjust the comment, tree view size. If you prefer to use it in landscape mode and don't like the left view, I might add a full screen game view in landscape mode later(low priority).
EasyGo is designed for ipad from ground up, and iphone support was added later. So good experience in IPAD is always my first priority. Please advise how I could improve the interface, thanks in advance.

As to "in help you need to tap with 2 fingers on goban , in app you need to tap special icon and choose from menu.":
what exactly do you mean? two finger tap is supported in game/problem edit mode, to toggle between game edit mode and replay mode. Two finger tap has no use in problem test mode. If you mean two finger tap to switch to edit mode from problem test mode, It's okay to add that feature later. Maybe:
for problem, two finger tap to toggle between edit and test and replay? (or just omit replay, or configurable?)
for games, two finger tap to toggle between edit and replay.
Please note, system bundled problems can't be edited currently. In the future, you might be able to switch to readonly edit mode to see the variation trees.

If possible, please send me the big sgf file you have trouble to import, I garantee I will only use the file for test only.

Hi Xyiana, As a special thank you to write this review, I would like to give you a promotion code for you to give to one of your friends to redeem at appstore. If you have interest on this, please let me know.

Also, you all are invided to vote the new features at my website at http://www.easygo361.com.

-Xiangz
http://www.easygo361.com
easygo361 at gmail

_________________
-xiangz, the author of EasyGo for iOS

Hi Xiangz,
Great to see that developer is open for customer's advices, and that you will expand and update this app in the future. I will keep an eye on this app - it looks it has a great potential and devoted developer
If you would like to translate this app into Polish - I'm open to help you with it.

Hi lobotommy,

Glad to hear from you. It's nice to know that you'd like to do the Polish translation, However I'm afraid I can't pay you since the sale income is very limited now. If you don't mind, I can give you a promo code to test with it, and review here or/and at Sensei's Library is very much appreciated.

If you still like to translate without pay, I'll be very glad to tell you how to get started. And I'll give you credit in the app and in the website.

-Xiangz

_________________
-xiangz, the author of EasyGo for iOS

SmartGo Kifu (€15.99) costs more than EasyGo (€9.99), though, and I think the focus of the two apps isn't quite the same. EasyGo is a bit of a mix between SmartGo Kifu and GoGrinder. Going by my limited "playing around" time with EasyGo so far, I find that you can record or edit games more comfortably than with Kifu (the latter does have the advantage of having this large collection of pro games, and I love it for that), and the highlight is definitely the option to create/import your own problem collections in a variety of ways. It's the only universal/iPad app that can do this, as far as I know.

I think Go software on iOS is generally very cheap (inexpensive, that is), and I sometimes have to remind myself of that, too. The exposure to all those few-cents apps distorts the view a little. I remember when I got my iPad and read that Kifu was under twenty Euro (I think it was more than 16 Euro at the time, but I may misremember that), I was like, "Wow, that is so cheap!". Today, after less than a year of AppStore exposure, the pre-brain-processing instinctive reaction to an app that costs more than two Euro is, "Ugh, that's expensive!". Well, that lasts for a few seconds and then I recall how much use I get out of these apps and how little they cost compared to the PC equivalents.

If we want high quality apps, we need to be willing to pay for them, especially in a niche market like Go software. And in EasyGo's case, we also have a developer who joins us here at L19 and asks for feedback, which implies he's more than willing to consider feature requests, too. That certainly is an "added value" aspect for me.

Sure, credit in the app will be sufficient . I think a beta version of the app could be handy while doing this translation.

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KGS on iPhone&iPad: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3648
Tsumego&tesuji apps for iPad&iPhone:http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7511

I just got 5 minutes with this app and longer review will be here tomorrow. One thing which gives me already really good impression is sgf editor module. Longer review is coming tomorrow and for now I attached a partial screenshot of edit options.

The developer of EasyGo has kindly given me a promocode so I can review it for (one of the) site I manage, and so far I've found the same you saw: they are not focused on the same. Thus comparing them (except in some regards) would be unfair for both.

And I agree, iOS apps are underpriced: when something passes the 5€ (or $) mark, it looks expensive, but if the developer did a great work and is useful... Why not buy it? If it is good, it is good.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

They arent underpriced. They have less and worse functionality than PC versions and easier to reach wide audience. Thats why. Think about SmartGo kifu as PC app. As editor it is worse than Drago. As archive/analytic tool is like ant to elephant if you compare to MoyoGo. So why pay for it?
SmartGo is rly good only as mobile app. Thats all.

Xiangz, thanks for your reactions.


This. You need consistent behaviour with switching between edit/view/test mode for games/problems.

Comments/tree view
You can change size of tree view and comments. But with split view and fixed left side panel if you want to show comments or bigger tree view, goban size is too small. Looking at the left side panel with wasted space is heartbreaking in this situation.

My personal functionality preferences are like MoyoGo for iPad. Make your app functionality like this and ill pay 30euro without any problem. This is exact area where SmartGo is without any love(maybe due to focus on ebooks now? ).

Hi Xyiana,

Thank you. Based on your suggestion, I'll add the following features in future releases:
1. Two finger tap to switch modes.( test, edit, replay), maybe no need to switch to replay for problem, IMHO, replay is seldom used for problems. Please advise. (this is easy to implement)
2. In landscape mode, provide a button or gesture to zoom the right view to full screen. Currently please just use it in portrait mode.
Anyway, game order and game search are my first priorities based on your feedbacks.

-Xiangz

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-xiangz, the author of EasyGo for iOS

I have a few thing in my mind about this app.
It's a review and wish list in one

Xyiana made a few good points in her review, but I think she didn't edit much games on iPad.
I think that for editing and reviewing games EasyGo is a better tool than SmartGo, of course this is my personal point of view.

Ok, my few thoughts about this app:

It look like competitior to SmartGo but it give us a little different approach to managing our SGF library. And it does it well.
This app is sold without any games database but we can now import hundreds of games or problems at once. We all have huge number of games on our PCs but now we can just import them all to the iPad or iPhone and view, study, or edit them on the go. In SmartGo we have thousand of games already loaded, here we create our own database. There are a lot of pro games on the web, and probably all of us has collections of games of Shusaku, Cho Chikun, Takemiya Masak, Lee Sedol or any other player, so it is really not a problem to import all of them into this app.

There are more diferences between SmartGo and EasyGo.
In EasyGo we have SGF editor with a treemoves view - you know that it is a big deal, whithout it is very frustrating to view or edit files with multiple moves branches.

Another thing is that we have folders for our files. In SmartGo we have tags and we can do a earching by anything-we-enter (name, date, result etc), so it is a dynamic search through collection of games vs structure of folder/files structure in EasyGo. Both has it pros & cons. If you have dynamic search only and it is the only way you can sort your games - after a few months it will be a mess. Huge list of games and you need to remember tags you used previously to search through all your saved games. If you have Folders - then you can sort your files as you like and put files where you want them, but you lost an easy way to search through files.
The best would be to combine both ways to sort our games: dynamic folders created by tags - like static folder but with dynamic content.
So we have dynamic search through collection of games (SmartGo) vs clear structure of files (EasyGo).

Grid view of catalogues/folders and files - you can change a way you want view a files - like in SmartGo (small board and details left to it) or just a smallboards (like presentation of games in PandaTetsuki). Not big deal but it's ok have this option.

Zip files import - you can import collection of games or problems - this is what I refered to at the begining - nice feature,

We have also a few nice additions like:
- Show SGF as txt option
- very good edit options with moves tree
- Autoplay and slider for quick view (tap with two fingers on the board to show these options)

The weak point is that the app is asking you if you want to save changes. On iOS it is a bad choice - it should be automatic. Autosave should be implemented. Better to have this feature, mannualy saving is so much not iOS like. It is not a problem but is definitely should be changed.

My wish list for this app (a few thing that should help while viewing a games:):

Autosave (no "save" button anymore, anywhere )

Moves numbers above stones on moves tree like this:
1 2 3 4
O o O o

Option to set speed of autoplay.

"next variation" button - to help circle through varations

Zoom works ok but is not scalable , and no double tap for zoom in zoom out - it would be nice have these features.

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KGS on iPhone&iPad: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3648
Tsumego&tesuji apps for iPad&iPhone:http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7511

Hi lobotommy,

Thank you for your detailed review.

Speed of auto replay can be adjusted, tap in the left half or right half board to adjust the speed.

About auto save, I didn't implement auto save because I think most of people might use the app to replay games, and I haven't implement the feature of "try move"(that is, try the moves without modifying the file), so the user can just tap the board to try some moves and discard the change, and it also prevent the file being modified accidently.
Anyway, maybe add auto save as an option.(default ON)

I saw some PC sgf editors(like stonebase, multigo) has a read only mode where you can actually click the board to try moves without modifying the game. This might be another approach.

Please also be aware, the current version has a problem: if the app is put on background, and the IOS terminate it due to low memory(generally only happen after EasyGo was in background for an extended peorid of time or some memory-hungry app was launched), you modification will be lost. So, please save file peoriodically currently. Sorry for that.

As to double tap to zoom, I have tried that, but the problem is that after implementing double tap, the single tap will have a delay, which I don't like. Maybe also an option in the future(default off)
(technical detail)It seems the interval between two tap can't be configured until I use some low level touch detection api, which I don't have time to do right now.

Scalable zoom, that is continous zoom will be added later(low priority yet), currently, pinch gesture can only double size zoom.

As to switch variation, it is easy to implement. The issue is where I put the button, especially in iphone. If you have to tap twice to select this, maybe it's easier to just tap the variation in the tree view.

I'll write a summary about all the bugs/features you all have mentioned.

-Xiangz

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-xiangz, the author of EasyGo for iOS

Finally, an iPad app I can upload my massive problem go problem collection to!

Even though it took a while to figure out the upload procedure I am happy with the end result with all my sets in their own folders.

I do have a couple suggestions for future enhancements to make a great thing even better.

1) Smartgo for the pc allows you to do a problem set in a shuffled order. I find this helps after you have gone through a problem set in order a few times.

2) Many faces of go has a feature where for a particular problem set as you get more problems correct you get harder problems. For sets where the problems get harder as you go along this could be a cool feature.

Thanks again for making this app, for me it was well worth the money.

Hi Yertle,

Thank you for your suggestions. Problem shuffling is easy, I'll add it in later versions.
As to the second suggestion, I'll evaluate the difficulty. I bought Igowin Life for iphone, I also like the auto level features of Igowin life. However, for the current bundled problems, My wife(amateur 5d in China) and I have tried to arrange all the problems in correct order(from easy to hard). However, due to limited time and different people have different understanding on difficulty, I'm far from satisfied with the current ordering. Only after the difficulty order has been established, the auto level features will be possible.

By the way, to all who have bought EasyGo, could you please also rate & review it in appstore? Although I can't give your direct feedback via appstore, it will be helpful for others to make decisions.

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-xiangz, the author of EasyGo for iOS