SmartGo Kifu App Reviews

SmartGo is by far the most polished Go app on the store that Ive tried. If you by the Kifu edition, youll also have a huge library of games to explore to help improve your play. Its well worth the cost.

This Go app is funny because every time Im about to win some territory, the application suddenly quits and when I reopen it the computer changed its last move so that I cant do my move anymore, which is why the computer always seems to win. On the other hand, someone else I know who also uses this app says its too easy for him to win, so its no fun to play. It was also really expensive in my opinion, but I got it because it had higher ratings than a lot of other Go apps available, but you should know its not worth it for either beginners or those who already know how to play.

One of the greatest go apps ever...period. Not sure what happened in this update, but the scoring within the playing area has disappeared and has now been replaced with dots. BRING THE OLD OPTION BACK!!!! It was very useful to young players to understand the different ways of scoring. Hopefully its just a button that Im forgetting to push, but I looked everywhere. Did I miss something? This app is worthy of 5 stars but with the missing scoring, 4 is all this version gets.

I love the program, but this last update brought it down a lot. The scoring was changed to little dots and I lost the ability to number moves despite it being selected. Bring back the old scoring format and please fix this bug!

It keeps crashing sometimes while I am playing. Please fix!!

Have only looked at the problem solving piece so far. The problems are excellent and the interface is quite clean and very easy to use. Its definitely earned its price and I havent even scratched the surface yet.

This is a really excellent go program. It includes many thousands of problems, which help you to analyze shapes. Many of the problems are from classic works but there are modern problems as well. Also included is an amazing library of professional games. It is helpful to see what the professionals do, so just stepping through a game can help you to understand why the pros would do these things. There are also a number of annotated games which is nice. I consider this application a must for any student of go who has an iPad. Great job!

I run version 3.1.2 of SmartGo Kifu on my iPod Touch, the latest version that will run on my old machine. Best investment in learning Go that Ive ever made. I can review professional games from its library move by move and decide what I think each player should do before seeing what they did. It also works great for recording my games and reviewing them. SmartGo provides excellent support. Twice when I had a question or suggestion, I got a helpful reply within hours to my email. Highly recommended.

The random orientation and color in problem settings seems a little buggy.

I am mainly looking for an AI opponent that is worth my time. The professional games are just a plus. Being a busy professional i cannot possibly commit a couple of hours to a game with a real person on regular basis, but do not want to give up the childhood hobby i was passionate about when i was young. SmartGo is a decent opponent on a 9x9 board, even though it becomes a joke on a full scale 19x19 board. I can beat it even allowing it 4 handicap stones on a 13x13 board, but still struggle with a 9x9 game on equal terms. It might just as well, since i really dont have that much time for a full game any way. It served the purpose. It did not get the full 5 stars because i still wish it could be stronger. To disclose, i am probably at around 1 dan level.

Like another reviewer said, "From perfect to not." I dislike the new interface so much that I deleted the new version and re-installed a copy of 2.2.1 that I fortunately had saved. So it only has 60,144 pro games in the database. So what? I can live without the extra 16,000+ games the new version has. For now at least. I suppose that I will upgrade at some point in the future, but for now Im sticking with 2.2.1. For someone new to the app, I suppose the new interface looks just fine. However, having this new interface foisted upon us being used to the original was just too jarring. The old icons had lots of color in them, giving them a lively, appealing look. The game tree icon looked like a little tree. The book view icon looked like a little book. The old icons and interface had character to them. The new icons are all monochrome stick figures, and they give the app a somewhat antiseptic look. Too clean, too drab. Too much white. For example, the only way I can tell the function of the left arrow key is because its the left one of the pair, not because of its image. Ditto of course for the right one. I could go on, but I will stop here. As much as I hate the new interface, the new version is still a 5-star app, and any go enthusiast should buy it, along with EasyGo too. The two apps complement each other nicely. Update: I dont appreciate that the app is now for iOS 7.0 and above, because I am still on v6.1.3 and I plan to stay there because I despise the look and feel of iOS 7 (I shudder to think what iOS 8 will look like, if I can even run it on an iPad 2.) I may upgrade to iOS 7 at some point in the future, but I dont like that I would be required to do so in order to update my copy of SmartGo Kifu. When the app went to 3.0, it was still working on iOS 6. What could have changed that made the move to iOS 7 mandatory?

Overall, this is a great application with a really rich feature set. Im a fairly new player and find this application very helpful as I try to become a stronger player. My only nitpick is that you have to play a number of a games to obtain a certain level before the 13x13 and 19x19 boards are unlocked. I appreciate that the engine rates my ability to play on the larger boards ...but given the fact that I purchased the application to use as both a game and a learning tool, Id really like to be able to play all board sizes from the beginning without having to unlock them.

There are many, many great features in this app- game review, huge database, computer play, tsumego collection. No other go app compares.

This app is an amazing product and worth many times its price for anyone looking to start learning or seriously develop their Go game. Every part of the app was done with care and attention to detail. I absolutely recommend this app in tandem with the Go Books app as a great pairing. This is clearly a labor of love by an indie developer which are often the App Store gems that make iOS shine.

This has been a great learning tool. The player is sufficiently difficult for me. I love the annotated games feature. Please add more developers! While Im still too noob to analyze the pro games deeply by myself, there is still tremendous value for me especially in learning how pros open and attack and counter. Coupled with smart go books and the three books I also bought (also a great value), this has strengthened my game pretty quickly... Much faster than learning from my father alone (single digit kyu player).

With this app you can really figure with your Go game. With so many features and so many pro games you will never run out of things to explore. An app as deep as the game it built to explore.

Exactly what I was looking for.

Plenty of examples, good Go guide, tons of matches to analyze and self-balancing AI make this product worth each penny.

I struggled for a long time before letting go of the $20 for it. But in comparison to other offerings I felt smart go kifu offered the most. It has a nice interface and is very usable even on an iPhone which is not always the case with go apps. There are a wealth of problems, annotated games, and pro games. And if that isnt enough you can easily import more. The one thing I wish it had was some concept of shared storage. Most importantly to sync problems and games between an iPhone and an iPad. The only option is to manually export and import which is kind of lame. Shared storage would also make it easier to import games that you already have from other sources rather than one by one sharing and importing. I also wish there was a little more customization with the "my games" area. Any game you import goes into that area so it is a bit of a misnomer.

I was a huge fan of the old Smart Go app, this seems to be the newer version (had hears ago on iPod). Love all the problems and researching old games!