iPhone
Apple's iPhone is perhaps not the ideal platform for playing on with its small screen but its ubiquity ensures there is plenty of interest in internet clients, AI based games and its use as a study tool.
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The App Store
There is a growing number of go applications available from the App Store:
Free applications:
- Tetsuki: An IGS client and game recording app that allows email sending of games.(
Web Site /
iTunes)
- GNU Go : An open source program to play against the classic go engine. Feel free to help for futher development.(
Web Site /
iTunes)
- Stones: seems to be available no more. A go board to play against a friend sitting next to you.(
Web Site /
iTunes)
- TRUE.Baduk Lite: A go board to play against a friend sitting next to you.(
iTunes)
Commercial applications:
(Prices as of May 09)
- SmartGo touch pro: A complete study application with 10 000+ pro-games and game recording app that allows email sending of games. Included are 2000+ problems. 7,99€. (
Web Site /
iTunes)
- SmartGo iPhone: A program to play against the computer or a friend. Based on Monte Carlo engine.2,99€. (
Web Site /
iTunes)
- Aya Go?: A program to play against the computer or a friend. Based on international Gold-Medalist Go Engine made by Hiroshi Yamashita. 7,99€. (
iTunes)
- 围棋死活题 : A program to manage collections of Go problems, in Chinese. It is not clear whether which collections, if any, is included. 0,79€. (
Web Site /
iTunes)
- GO! (wéiqí): A program to play against the computer or a friend. (Strength ?). Currently 1,59€ / was free : price is changing twice a month. (
Web Site /
iTunes)
- Go Touch?: A program to play against the computer or a friend. (Strength ?). Based on weak, but fast responsive engine. 0,79€. (
Web Site /
iTunes)
- TRUE.Baduk: A program to play against the computer or a friend. (Strength ?). 2,39€. (
iTunes)
Web Applications
Rather than produce special programs, a number of websites have been created for the iPhone. Examples are a version of Kogo at http://eidogo.com/, and the go playing client iShudan? at
http://code.google.com/p/ishudan/.
Playing on IGS or KGS
Playing on IGS or KGS natively on the iPhone
For IGS you can use Tetsuki. This app supports watching and playing on all common board sizes.
KGS is an unlikely option since William Shubert has generally discouraged clients other than cGoban.
The author of SmartGo has explained on a godiscussions forum that the first version of SmartGo for iPhone will not include an IGS client.
Playing on KGS (or IGS) indirectly on the iPhone
It is possible to play on KGS without any problems over VNC through your home machine. This is accomplished by connecting with one of the VNC clients available on App Store. My config is for example:
-
TightVNC (Open Source and Free Software) on my OpenBSD-server. Could as well be running on any normal Windows PC connected to the Internet with the VNC port open/port forwarding enabled in your firewall. (More info on
http://www.portforward.com/.)
-
Jaadu on the iPhone.
This way you also get disconnect redundancy since even if your iPhone get temporarily disconnected, you can still just reconnect and cGoban will have continued running as if you had just walked away from the keyboard.
Performance and response over 3G/Wi-Fi is perfect and snappy, but of course depends on your home connection. When running over EDGE it's not equally quick, but still perfectly playable.
Wallpaper
Reviews
Article on Macworld, http://www.macworld.com/article/139725/2009/03/go.html