Life In 19x19

Saw one other thread about this but not one with general advice for those new to smart phones and thought it might be nice to make a thread as go players are often handy for technology advice. Seems a smart phone is the only way I'll be able to keep my commitment of playing more go this year so for this and other reasons am finally going to break down and get one. Have done a little poking around and talked to my provider about various plans and phones but have not really gained much practical knowledge. The main thing I'd be using mine for is reading web pages on topics of interest and playing some go hopefully, so the bigger Galaxy is appealing as my eyes aren't what they used to be. Wouldn't really be doing much music or video with the device. My favorite go site's are IGS and DGS (think these both have apps for each if am remembering right). Like that J.F go books and other's can be had through SmartGo on iphone. Beyond this as far as pros n cons go it's a mystery.
Any tips, warnings and or input appreciated.

I think panda tetsuki by IGS is among the best apps out there for both platforms, save for tygem baduk which is for android only abs in Korean.

I like the wbaduk app for both systems quite a bit. I like having voice countdown.

I play my games on a nexus7 on kgs, tetsuki, and wbaduk. Unfortunately no Tygem app. I wouldn't expect to play any of these on a phone though. I just watch games on the phone.

If you want just play - any device/system will be sufficient. If you want study, do problems, create go stuff then only iOS has a good software base. Check my topic about tsumego/tesuji apps and you'll see how big is a difference. Also - SmartGo Books app is only on iOS right now and there is nothing comparable on other platforms.

Hmm. I can study (review game records), & do problems on my galaxy s3. I'm not sure about content creation, as I don't do that (and would use my desktop if I did). KGS is only on Android but the html client is going to happen soon anyway. Like lobotommy said you need ios if you want SmartGo but if you've already got a lot of books that might not be important (I borrowed a friends iPad and wasn't that impressed or rather its nice enough but I don't miss the temptation to buy all the books I already have a 2nd time ).

oren wrote:I like the wbaduk app for both systems quite a bit. I like having voice countdown.

I play my games on a nexus7 on kgs, tetsuki, and wbaduk. Unfortunately no Tygem app. I wouldn't expect to play any of these on a phone though. I just watch games on the phone.

Not even turn based? But yeah a tablet would be preferable for sure, am guessing they can be plugged into our phones internet connections? That would be cool and easily raise my interest in getting set up.

CnP wrote:...if you've already got a lot of books that might not be important

Already have more then will likely have opportunity to actually read before the lights go out. It's a good thing I prefer books for study and tsumego solving. Main thing I want one of these for as far as go goes is to provide myself more prospects to play


Thanks for the all the comments everybody. Am quite looking forward to trying some of these apps out and getting a bit more plugged into the game. It's an interesting topic, perhaps particularly to those who have limited chances plop stones down, hope we'll continue to see people post on their preferences and experiences with these.

happysocks wrote: Not even turn based? But yeah a tablet would be preferable for sure, am guessing they can be plugged into our phones internet connections? That would be cool and easily raise my interest in getting set up.

I used to do some turn based, but I don't play on DGS anymore. Now I do mostly tsumego instead.

CnP wrote:Hmm. I can study (review game records), & do problems on my galaxy s3. I'm not sure about content creation, as I don't do that (and would use my desktop if I did). KGS is only on Android but the html client is going to happen soon anyway. Like lobotommy said you need ios if you want SmartGo but if you've already got a lot of books that might not be important (I borrowed a friends iPad and wasn't that impressed or rather its nice enough but I don't miss the temptation to buy all the books I already have a 2nd time ).

I can assure you that buying books via SmartGo is 100% times better than buying a paper ones . Cheaper, always with you, interactive, instant access to new published books and to the out of print titles, and last but not least - no shipment costs.

Sure you can study and review games on Android, however I think there is still (were?) a significant gap between go tools on iOS and Android - in both quantity of the apps and their quality.

For playing games it is almost the same: WBaduk, IGS, Tygem, plus all correspondence based servers. KGS (desktop version, not mobile) is also available via third party apps.

As for the quality apps we've got "Three Crows" here on iOS:
SmartGo Kifu with over 73 000 pro games with Joseph/fuseki search, plus great interactive book view option.
EasyGo - fuseki search, internal webrowser for easy access to games on web, great tools for tsumego collections/creating and great training tool because of implementation of some interval training method, I don't remember exactly how it is called.
GoEye - go4go integration, PDF creating, picture to sgf feature, and quite interesting way of presenting variations.
So this is a crucial moment, when one should think twice about his OS platform. And a number of tsumego apps which are "iOS only" - is just overwhelming.

In my experience I have not found any Android app which was close to SmartGo, EasyGo or GoEye in terms of usability and features - but currently I don't have any android device to verify my-one-year-old experience, and I'm aware that things are changing fast so who knows, maybe there are some killer apps I'm not informed about.
Maybe the best option for the future will be an android phone and Apple's iPad but for now, as far as I know, iOS rules in the go apps area.

@oren There is a Tygem app available now, though it is only in Korean: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... .tyo.tygem

nagano wrote:@oren There is a Tygem app available now, though it is only in Korean: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... .tyo.tygem

Yeah, I have tried it. I got it to work but it's quite broken on new Nexus 7 graphically. I figure it's better to not

Even with this, I still love my Nexus 7 for go studying.

oren wrote:Yeah, I have tried it. I got it to work but it's quite broken on new Nexus 7 graphically. I figure it's better to not

Even with this, I still love my Nexus 7 for go studying.

Incidentally I had the same problem on my Nexus 7 (old version), but after a factory reset I tried it again and it works properly now.

SmartGo books for iOS is such an important app for studying go that I bought an iPad just to use it. I already had a tablet that I prefer and use for everything else (surface 2 pro), but there's nothing even close to that app for studying. It's the Kindle of go books, only it provides a lot of extra functionality (interactive diagrams and problems) that the paper versions lack.