I guess you never had an OGS account since after the server merge the duplicate accounts were merged. I see zero games in your profile. If you would like to offer some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, perhaps you should play some games to get a real feel for the server instead of bashing it with uninformed opinions. If you don't like the seek graph, present your view in the feedback section of OGS and suggest an alternative method of displaying game offers.

For my part, I think seek graphs are terrific. When there are many games open it graphically represent all the offers on the least amount of screen real estate. When you hover over a dot on the graph you get information on the offer. It's much easier than scrolling down a long list of games. Although, if you prefer that the list is also available.

Some people just gripe for the sake of being difficult.

explain why you think it (=seek graph) is a good feature

I have has partial success with Chrome on an iPad 1. It hasn't been totally issue free, and it actually isn't working right now (though I'm not sure if it is an issue on my end: I get disconnection messages, and my Internet connection is a bit spotty).

But, under the hood, Chrome for iOS isn’t Chrome. It’s using Apple’s browsing engine. What’s worse, it isn’t even the fast Nitro JavaScript engine used by Safari, but rather Apple’s older engine, known as UIWebView.

I mainly played on OGS using the android client, which now no longer seems to work. So I will probably give up on OGS entirely if a client doens't meander along soon, and give DGS a go.

Interestingly (to me if no-one else), my rank decreased as a result of the merger with no games being completed. I was just under 7 dan (with a record of 12-0-0.) I'm now 5 dan (again with a record of 12-0-0.).

My graph shows me as being 2700, though, but my geade shows as 2500. My graph also has an unexplained down bit in July, although I didn't lose any games in July.

It gives a graphical representation of time settings vs. rank.
Instead of having to manually parse a list of text entries (or even have to "hover over" an offer, as you have to on KGS), it gives an easy and immediate visualization of the two most important features we care about when we search for a game:
1) how long will the game last (approx)
2) how strong will our opponent be

Btw, seek graphs are not an invention of nova, they have been used on chess servers for ages. I think the only reason most go servers don't have them is because these servers have "automatch".

With a seek graph, automatch is the equivalent of marking a certain square (min_rank - max_rank and min_time - max_time) in the seek graph and joining the first game offer to pop up in that square.

Imho it is very hard to argue against the convenience of this form of visual representation, and doing so might make people wonder whether you just want to be argumentatitve for the sake of being argumentative.

And when there are many games being offered, even impossible with dots overlapping each other. [...] How do you handle multiple offers of exactly the same type?

how about looking for a game of a specific player?

I want to see which high dans are playing

A list is a tool more universal while a graph is a tool which is faster, sacrificing speed for control. For those of us who prefer speed, graphs might be better. For those who actually care what they do, lists are the way to go.

[*] How do you handle multiple offers of exactly the same type? They have to overlap - which means again, this is good only for those who don't care *which* of those challenges they accept.

Just a quick report about old iOS devices compatibility.

Works fine on iPhone4 with iOS 7.0.3 (Chrome, Safari, iCabMobile).

On iPad1 (iOS 5.1.1, jailbroken with Nitro engine installed) it shows you games and board, but submitting a move is bugged and it does not work (Chrome, Safari, iCabMobile, Puffin browser).

But I tried a browser called iSwifter which in real is a full desktop Firefox (run on some Linux probably) just streamed to iOS, and OGS/Nova worked with no problems this time (I would be really surprised if it didn't want to work that way).

I even tried to be double logged in - I made my moves on ipad via iSwifter while on iphone I got real time updates, so it looks like new ogs is fully operational for me now.

I'd never use a remote browser like this... Even if I'm no security freak, I'd be concerned. Sooner or later I'll upgrade my iPad (SmartGo Kifu no longer works in iOS <6)