About

Why a site dedicated to reviewing chess apps?

Well  I’m a bit of chess-nut and spend a lot (too much!) of my time using chess apps on my mobile devices. There are literally hundreds of different apps, covering all aspects of the game, not just simply playing chess.

Reviews on the Apple Itunes and Google Play Stores where they are left, tend to be cursory and of limited use. I’ve never found much in the way of informed reviews elsewhere on the web to help make a choice on which apps to spend time (and device memory) on. So I thought a dedicated review site might be useful to those similarly interested in chess on the go.

I appreciate there is a wide range of users of chess apps, from those interested in learning the game to serious ‘power users’. The reviews will try and take into account these differing needs and cater for the widest audience possible.

I’m also conscious good developers welcome feedback to help improve their products and often too few of us users take the time to give them our views. Hopefully any developer finding a review of their app on this site will find the comments helpful.

Ground rules for the reviews

The reviews on this site are based on my own use and experiences of the app alone. They are impartial and honest and attempt to portray the realistic experience of an average user. Having developed my own chess engine, I appreciate how much work is involved in programming any chess app and am very grateful to all developers, many of whom release their apps for free or little cost. My reviews are therefore aimed at being supportive, and even where criticism is made it is always my intention to be constructive.

Reviews will cover all types of chess app and won’t focus solely on the most popular or otherwise high profile apps. Given the large number available, there are many ‘golden nuggets’ waiting to be found. Also, in my experience, just because an app isn’t well known it doesn’t mean to say the developer hasn’t spent a lot of time working on it.

If there is a particular app you would like to see reviewed please leave a comment. You can also contact me via twitter @which_chess_app