Life In 19x19

Hello,
Like others, I've given to the dark side and bought an iPad.
I've tried to nurtured it with Go Material and this is what I found out after 1 week of use.

Boardz - asynchronous gaming
The application works fine : you can play online and offline with a human (if you have some nearby) or AI (strong enough at my level on 9x9). The design is fine but the game is lacking important features:
- level management
- chat
It's good tough if you know the person you want to play against (no random play).
Still, I have a good fun playing a full game in 19x19 over 3 days with a random opponent (who hopefully wasn't far from my level).

Go Tengen - IGS software
I've played it : works fine. Still, playing on this device is a bit strange. It's probably a combination of discovering online play on the iPad + discovering IGS at the same time. You can chat but it seems that people on IGS are not very talkative. I'm missing deeply the social aspect of KGS. Still, I'll have to practice more on this one as it is the application to play real time on internet with the iPad.

Smartgo Kifu - problems + game library (+ AI)
I bought it with the expectation that it would be an improved version of Smartgo Pro (which I love on my iphone). It's really the same beast on a bigger screen. I was therefore a little bit disappointed (even if the application is still great and the best "go related" you can find on itunes). I'm looking forward to new features : capabilities to add / read comments to game (I know there are games with comments but I don't think you can add comments nor upload games with comments - if someone believes I'm wrong, please let me know), direct reading of SGF file (example: I'd love to be able to go to the KGS archives, open a game by clicking on it in a web browser and getting the game ready to be reviewed on Smartgo Kifu), editing capabilities such as Drago to create situations to review (you can do it through passing but you can't "set-up a board position" then start to play on the application). I was hoping this would be the best tool to study on the iPad but i'm still missing those features (I guess if you review pro games, it's a different story as those are already implemented).

Overall, I'm a little big disappointed by the use I can make of the iPad for playing and studying go. I really hope this is only the beginning and more things will come (I'm mostly thinking about Smartgo Kifu here as the website is mentioning the potential of the platform for go studying).

And for the fellow iPad owners around, what are your thoughts / recommendations on using the iPad for go (play / study)?

Actorios wrote:Hello,

Smartgo Kifu - problems + game library (+ AI)[/b]
I bought it with the expectation that it would be an improved version of Smartgo Pro (which I love on my iphone). It's really the same beast on a bigger screen. I was therefore a little bit disappointed (even if the application is still great and the best "go related" you can find on itunes). I'm looking forward to new features : capabilities to add / read comments to game (I know there are games with comments but I don't think you can add comments nor upload games with comments - if someone believes I'm wrong, please let me know), direct reading of SGF file (example: I'd love to be able to go to the KGS archives, open a game by clicking on it in a web browser and getting the game ready to be reviewed on Smartgo Kifu), editing capabilities such as Drago to create situations to review (you can do it through passing but you can't "set-up a board position" then start to play on the application). I was hoping this would be the best tool to study on the iPad but i'm still missing those features (I guess if you review pro games, it's a different story as those are already implemented).

Overall, I'm a little big disappointed by the use I can make of the iPad for playing and studying go. I really hope this is only the beginning and more things will come (I'm mostly thinking about Smartgo Kifu here as the website is mentioning the potential of the platform for go studying).

And for the fellow iPad owners around, what are your thoughts / recommendations on using the iPad for go (play / study)?

I apologize in advance for this post.

I am able to take a commented game off KGS, email it to the IPad and open it in SmartGo Kifu and see the variations and comments from the KGS game.

It is not easy, at least for me, and there must be a better way, and I am bad at computers so not sure I can explain my "bad" way.

But it can be done.

Sorry again for offering hope without help.

Horibe wrote:
I apologize in advance for this post.

I am able to take a commented game off KGS, email it to the IPad and open it in SmartGo Kifu and see the variations and comments from the KGS game.

It is not easy, at least for me, and there must be a better way, and I am bad at computers so not sure I can explain my "bad" way.

But it can be done.

Sorry again for offering hope without help.

This is a bit ridiculous from me but i didn't realise you could upload comment s together with the game record
In fact, you helped me a lot with your comments ! I've got quite a few commented games (thanks to topazg for most of them)that I really like to go back to and now I can see a real benefit from getting them on the iPad.
The issue with pro games is that you can only benefit from them if you get comments (indeed breakfast did comment 20 of them but I'm a bit afraid that I'm not experienced enough to get much benefit out of them).

I think I'll upload my entire game library now into Smartgo Kifu.

Thanks,

Hi Actorios, how are the ergonomics of playing on a tablet? I mean I don't have one but it seems that it would be awkward to hold for an hour, perhaps you lay it flat or use an iPad stand? thx

CnP wrote:Hi Actorios, how are the ergonomics of playing on a tablet? I mean I don't have one but it seems that it would be awkward to hold for an hour, perhaps you lay it flat or use an iPad stand? thx

Hi Cheese 'n Pickles, sorry for not answering your question any earlier.
Hmm... The tablet is fairly light : it can sit on your laps, lay flat on a table or, if you use a protective cover, stand up as a keyboard (upper part slightly risen) or just plain up (landscape format).
Still I must say I tend not to stand still with the iPad in my hands: usually when playing online, I tend to go for a walk (a few steps do the trick) every now and then, especially after or before difficult moments on the board. Here, the iPad makes it worse.

I didn't play with someone though: I don't know if it would be uncomfortable or not.

Ok, thanks. I've had a look at a friend's iPad so I've got an idea of how they feel in general use but for playing online I'm coming to the conclusion (without owning one or any tablet) that you'd have to either stand it up (tiring for the arm? I've never used a touchscreen monitor for Go either), or lay it flat. I read the iPad has a good range of angles you can see the screen for so I guess that'd be okay.

I only have the ipod touch version, but there is another way to get the game into smartgo than emailing it.

For example to view a game from kgs, you can go to http://www.gokgs.com/archives.jsp

Once you've found your game, you press and hold the link to the SGF, it should give you the option to copy the URL.

Then go into smartgo, into your game library and there is a plus-sign icon [+], and you can have the option to open an sgf from the web.

press on the URL field and a bubble should pop up with the option to paste.

This will paste your KGS game into smartgo with comments, so you can review your games on the run. Quite handy to bring your losses to the local club guru and this option alone has gotten a ton of use on my ipod touch.

You can also download your games from KGS Analytics:

http://kgs.gosquares.net/index.rhtml

Thanks a lot to both for your comments on accessing the archives.
Unfortunately, most of the games I'd like to go through are commented games and those are most often created offline and sent via e-mail. I would need to upload them to a site (how to do that with an iPad) then download them again.

I've had an e-mail exchange with Anders Kierulf and he told me that opening of SGF files was high on his priority list... I'm looking forward to it.


Aside from that, I've tried something new: I've uploaded a Malkovitch game (fwiffo vs. Chew Terr) which Chew did convert in SGF (a long and painful process) and read it on the iPad. It was wonderful ! The feature of having multiple diagrams to navigate through the variations was wonderful : it was so much better than going through the forum and opening the various "spoiler boxes" (of course, this assume you are looking at a past Malkovitch game... if it's running, you can add comments and follow the game with the tension of not knowing the end, which is nice).
I highly recommend it... If only more Malkovitch games were put into SGF... This would give a super bundle of games to be reviewed on iPad.

You might try downloading games from the go teaching ladder. They have a wealth of commented games.

Needo wrote:You might try downloading games from the go teaching ladder. They have a wealth of commented games.

great suggestion, I don't know why I so regularly forget about that website, it is full of great information.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/appl ... s-will-al/

Apple loosening the belt of it's fortress, maybe a good sign for getting kgs working on ipads? maybe not too? not much info yet, we'll see.

PYves wrote:http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/09/apple-backpedaling-on-some-ios-development-restrictions-will-al/

Apple loosening the belt of it's fortress, maybe a good sign for getting kgs working on ipads? maybe not too? not much info yet, we'll see.

No, that's only about Flash development tools, not about adding Java.

no, it's about using 3rd party development tools, that article mentions flash specifically just because it's the one most people talk and care about. It's also the one that has the most controversy attached because of political battles between the two companies.

When I tell computer guys that I want an ipad that will run java they are like "why the hell would you want that? what uses java nowadays?"

However it is mostly the same issue, allowing programs from other languages (including java) to run on ios.

Apple has changed its super-controversial stance on third party developer tools for iOS apps, now allowing any and all comers (which would obviously include Adobe Flash CS5), "as long as the resulting apps do not download any code."

directly from the article. if you ask me, java is a comer, but I guess we'll see.