New In Chess Books

as in title

First, there is no dedicated search field. Once you purchase a book you have to scroll through all the books to find the one you own. There is no filter for books you own and don't own. The app user experience is poor. Second, the font formatting and font color doesn't make it obvious to the eye which moves are a variation, viewable in the chess viewer, or a simple comment. Several times I tapped on the move notation and it was not viewable in the game viewer.

I have purchased a book in this app about a month ago. I was reading it on and off. I don’t know what they did but today I saw I was signed off and I am unable to sign in into their system with my credentials in order to read that book. I recommend to fire all developers and their managers who create such frustrating bugs and not even bothering to test this basic login functionality!

Love the concept, purchases should show up in my library. I have to scroll in the store till I find them. Also the app crashes some time ps when loading a book. Maybe due to the new book format they are moving to. Fix these primer issues and could be a 5 star

The content is fantastic but the fact that the app cannot keep track of your library of bought books is crazy. It makes it so hard to go back to the book I’m reading which is the main purpose of the reader. There are much better readers for chess books in the AppStore.

I recently purchased “Endgame Tactics” but couldn’t find it when I tapped the My Library button. There isn’t even a Search function to search by title. I have to tap a button for their Middlegame/Endgame category and scroll down to look for the book I bought! Just by how user-hostile this app is I would like to get a refund.

As several reviewers noted, finding books purchased in your library is somewhat of a hit and miss. In addition, while the available content is great, the experience of using the app is not great. There is no option of highlighting text, bookmarking pages or entering comments on text or positions.

App frequently kicks you back to its Home Screen and won’t let you back into your library of books without signing out and back in again. Then at some point you will need to repeat the process. The developer won’t respond to issues, so hopefully they’ll push yet another useless update that’ll create another issue. I am on iOS 14.2.1

Even though I purchased a book from the website, I get asked to restore previous purchases from the Apple Store every time I try to open the book. Then it says no Apple Store purchases to restore, and then I get kicked out of the book, even if I am logged in with my NIC account. Sent an email to support, no response a week later. Avoid this app.

This is basically the NIC Yearbook app, but for books. It’s much improved from their first book app (basically a branded version of the e+ app) but the problem with improving the looks like that is it sets off flaws in sharp relief. The first and most obvious flaw is the way “Back to Book” works in the viewer. Instead of returning to the game (either beginning or end of it would be much better) it insists on returning to the start of the chapter. A second flaw is a little more subtle. If you had purchased books for use in the original book app they released, you cannot move them into this reader. So long a e+ remains workable, it’s a minor flaw, but whenever I go to buy a book, there’s a nagging question: how long before they desert this app and I lose the ability to read the book I paid for? I don’t know, and that makes me uncomfortable about either recommending the app, or buying books. There’s an auto-play function, advancing the game at a constant rate. If you’ve seen the yearbook app, or the games in the magazine app, you know how the viewer works. (Funnily enough, the magazine viewer knows how to return to the page the game was on, seems a bit sloppy to leave it out of the book viewer.) It’s the best game viewer out there, but in light of the flaws I mentioned, I can’t do better than “meh” for a recommendation. My guess is the first flaw will be fixed soon, it was probably just something they missed in testing. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same high expectations for the second. Too many e-publishers have decided every single variety of e-book should be treated as yet another profit center (I’ve even seen some, not NIC, try to sell the exact same book to me a second time.) So take the caution, you don’t own anything you’re buying for this app, and you may have to repurchase everything in the future. If you’re OK with that, raise it a star. I’m not, so I didn’t.

This is a great design and New in Chess has a nice introduction to the Chess Book app marketplace. The one fatal flaw with this app, and the reason I am giving it 2 Stars verses 5, is because it cannot remember where I left off in the book. Instead, it takes me back to the front cover, then scroll until I reach the table of contents, and then remember where in the giant chapter I left off making this very difficult to just pick up and read without reviewing older material. A simple bookmark and/or highlighter system would easily fix this and greatly increase my star rating to 4 or 5. Again, the interface is beautiful, and I like the idea of either reading the book as it is in PDF form or popping a game out to the integrated board.

Son muy buenos, muy caros

This app is down right dishonest and leads to people making purchases where they are unable to get the product they have purchased. I say that because the same problems I experienced today have been going on for the past 3 years. New in chess is a great source for chess tips and strategies. However, this app doesn’t have bugs, it is simply non-functional. New in chess shouldImmediately remove this app until it is fixed. It is dishonest to advertise interactive e-books that available through a app that simply does not work. You have to sign in multiple times while trying to run the app, books are not available in your library that you purchased from new in chess.com, and if you try to download a book you purchased from their website the app prompts you to sign in again and then to purchase the e-book from the apple store. In fact the only part of this website I have been able to get to work properly is the free sample. Once again that is dishonest. That leads a potential customer to believe that a purchase will work on the app when in fact it does not.

I bought a book, signed up for an account on the app, then tried to access the book. The interface is Byzantine. The interface sends you here and there, but never gives access to the book or the opportunity to enter the code received when I purchased the book. I was totally unable to access the book. The only option seems to be to purchase again. Not going to do that. The help files were useless.