Deep Green 4+

This application gets a clear 4 stars from me. Haven't played other chess apps on the iPhone, but have played a lot of computer chess in my time. This is quite wonderful.
The GUI is slick, polished and simply lovely to look at. My favourite part: you can flip the board over and see the "clockwork" mechanism underneath: marvellous. And it plays a fine game of chess (which is, after all, the purpose). A great deal of thought and attention has gone into a myriad of little touches, such as the slighly worn wood of the board, and the smooth movement of the pieces (never simply appearing or disappearing). Unlike most computer chess programs, there isn't a bewildering number of options to master: only a very few controls are presented.
Why not five stars? Well, if you choose to play black, you can't reorient the board: you must play down the screen toward yourself. It should be possible to save your games and review them later (maybe export them). It would be nice to be able to turn the screen on its side and have the board rotate too.
This app represents a harmonious marriage between chess (centuries old) and the iPhone (bang up to date). This sort of thing is why I bought my iPhone. Let's hope they keep on improving it.

With the latest update, Deep Green has become even more pleasurable to play. I still love all the little touches like the way the selected piece "jiggles" while waiting for you to decide where to put it, to the option of having it remind you what the last move was. Just lovely. Many of the comments people have made about difficulty accessing certain options have been taken on board, and an extensive help system has been added too ... and bugs I mentioned in an earlier review seem to have been ironed out (that seemed to happen in the previous update).

I've got several of the other chess programs for the iPhone, and while some of those play stronger chess and offer options which this currently lacks, Deep Green plays solidly and is so much more pleasant to use than the competition that I can't imagine ever removing this from my iPhone.

Many thanks for your continued excellent work. I look forward to the extra features mentioned as being "in the roadmap" on your forum.

This is a beautifully presented game of chess with a clean, minimal, interface that's very pleasant to use. However, this elegance comes at a small price: finding some of the options is not as straightforward as it could otherwise be, the most obvious being the engine strength. Instead of hiding these settings within the "game stats", it would be far simpler to have these either within the preferences, or when you start a new game.

It would also be nice to have some kind of help available either on the web or within the game. Some of the options are not self-explanatory.

Those gripes aside, though, it really is a pleasurable chess game to play once you've worked out its quirks.