What's new in 1.6.5 - Pick your own vibration for captures and checks — Settings → appearance → haptics. Previews play the move sound too. - Choose the shape of move hints and capture hints: dot, diamond, square, plus, ring, crosshair, corner brackets, corner shading, x-mark and more. - Board & pieces now has a live demo board and a new “look” tab for hints, highlight colours and animations. Tap the board to pause. - New “dynamic” animation theme: moving pieces leave a soft fading line in their colour. The old “animations” option is now “animation speed”. - New default board: sand. DM Sans font everywhere.

What's new in 1.6.4 - The app name now shows correctly as "zochess" in iOS Settings, widgets, and Screen Time. - Small stability and housekeeping improvements.

What's new in 1.6.3 - Banned accounts are now visible at a glance: a small marker shows on their profile, in search results, and next to their name in recent games. - Chat mutes now show a clear "muted until [date]" notice in game chat and DMs, instead of silently rejecting your message. - Board and piece customization choices no longer reset back to default after restarting the app. - Fixed the daily streak pop-up celebration not appearing after solving a puzzle. - Your rating now refreshes right away after answering the chess experience question during onboarding. - Clearer, fully localized sign-up error messages.

What's new in 1.6.2 - Daily streak celebrations, your way: choose off, in-game dialog, or a compact pop-up notification in Settings. - Streak pop-up celebrations now feel smoother and show cleanly over games and puzzles. - Board and piece customization is simpler: everything lives in Settings > Appearance with a cleaner picker. - Plus more UI polish across the app.

What's new in 1.6.1 - Premium: advanced analysis. Game Review now explains WHY a move was good, a mistake, or a blunder — in plain language, not just an eval number — with a replayable line so you can see the idea for yourself. - A new full-screen loader while your game is being analyzed: watch the real moves play out on the board as the analysis catches up, with a chess fact to read while you wait. - Recognized openings in Game Review are now tappable — jump straight to that opening's theory page. - Your profile now shows a "premium since" badge if you're a member. - Plus the usual polish.

What's new in 1.6.0 - The puzzle screen's bottom bar is redesigned: it now shows only the buttons you need at each moment — hint, back, and forward while you're thinking; solution, skip, and a bold retry right after a mistake; a bold "next" once you've solved it. Switching between them is a smooth animation. - Your custom hint colour now syncs to your account, so it follows you to your other devices. - Fixed: the Play tab could briefly flash the wrong time control (and rating) when you tapped Play. - Fixed: the puzzle options screen's description now matches what's actually there. - Plus the usual polish.

What's new in 1.5.9 - Puzzles, reworked: a real difficulty picker, configurable pacing (auto-advance and auto-retry, each with its own delay), and full translations in every supported language. - New: practice mode. Replay any puzzle you've already solved, missed, or seen the solution to — nothing is at stake, so it never touches your rating or tries. - Sign in or register with Telegram, alongside Google and Apple. - Link or unlink Google, Apple, and Telegram from Settings → Account, with a "set a password" fallback so you're never locked out. - Bot difficulty now unlocks progressively — win at one level to open the next. - Your own move against a bot now shows immediately, and untimed bot games are saved so you can find and review them later. - Game Review adds a move analysis card and interactive best-line playback, and bot games you've played can now be opened there too. - Filter your game history by opponent — human or bot. - A one-time "how well do you know chess?" question appears before your first game. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.8 - Tap anyone's avatar — yours included — to open it full-screen. Animated avatars loop, pinch to zoom, and the viewer shows their name, country, online status, and ratings. - Bot games are saved privately in your history and can be opened in Game Review with server-backed analysis. - Sign-up now offers every country (259, up from 80), and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland render as their own flags instead of falling back to "international". - Matchmaking now recovers from a dropped connection while you're searching for a game — a live queue timer replaces the old static "starting soon" text, and a reconnecting badge shows instead of leaving you stuck. - Picking an avatar photo or video now uses your phone's own picker instead of an in-app gallery browser. - "Play again" now opens the correct full-screen play screen, instead of occasionally dropping you into a retired multi-step setup wizard. - Player-card avatars are bigger and easier to make out at a glance. - Friends' live games now get their own section at the top of the watch tab, so you can find them without scrolling past everyone else's. - New-account sign-up rejects invalid usernames immediately instead of only after you submit, and post-game rewards (coins, case drops) show up more reliably. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.7 - Play is now a button in the bottom bar. It opens one screen instead of a four-step setup: your rating, a time-control picker with every option on one sheet, and a play button that starts looking for an opponent right away. - Whatever you played last is already chosen and marked "last", so playing again at the same time control is a single tap. - Your friends are on the home screen — who's online, who's mid-game (tap to watch), and a button to challenge them, ordered by who played most recently. - Signing up is shorter: Google and Apple lead the welcome screen, the extra form that used to follow is gone, and the password is asked once, not twice. - Challenges show your opponent's ratings before you accept, and explain why one was refused. - The bot difficulty names, and coin and game counts in Portuguese and Hindi, are now properly translated. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.6 - The app now follows your phone's light/dark setting — and does so by default. You can still pick light or dark yourself any time in appearance settings. - Fixed: reopening the app no longer leaves the live-games feed frozen, or an online game and its chat stuck on a dead connection. - A few leftover English bits are now translated in every language. - Sign-up is a bit simpler: your country is now detected automatically instead of picked from a list, and creating your account (or finishing sign-in with Google/Apple) doubles as agreeing to the terms and privacy policy. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.5 - Your profile now has a QR code — someone points a camera at it and lands on your profile in the app. - Share a finished game's review with anyone. Offline games share as moves you can paste anywhere. - Shared review links open straight in the app, on the right game — and no longer open a browser tab on top of it. - If we gift you premium, the app tells you — and how long you've got. - Fixed: the app no longer starts a purchase for a membership you already have. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.4 - In-game chat — message your opponent during online games in a clean chat thread. - New messages pop up over your opponent, with an unread badge and a sound. - Long-press a message to report abuse; moderators see the surrounding chat. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.3 - Links to zochess.com — shared games, profiles and more — now open right in the app. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.2 - Setting a profile photo or animated avatar is faster and smoother. - New in-game options: show or hide opponents' countries and ratings, choose where your connection shows, and turn the analog clock on or off. - Fixed a bug where a message you sent could appear as sent to yourself. - Sign-up is quicker — we now suggest your country automatically. - Fixed a brief flash of the wrong board theme when a game ended. - Plus the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.5.1 - zochess premium is here — a membership that unlocks double coins on every game you play, animated avatars, profile flairs and more. Subscribe from your profile; your membership follows you across every device. - Animated avatars — bring your profile to life with a short looping video instead of a still photo. Trim it, pick the frame that shows everywhere else, and it plays on your profile and in game. - Profile flairs — pick a glyph to sit next to your name and it shows up everywhere you appear: games, friends, search, the leaderboard and game review. Tap anyone's flair to see what it means. - One-of-a-kind flairs — some flairs are awarded to a single player and can't be bought or unlocked. Everyone can see them; only their owner can wear one. - Loot cases — open cases to collect new board designs and piece sets. Win cases from your online games, or get them in the store; opening one reveals a random cosmetic. - A slick reveal — cases open with a smooth spinning-wheel animation and sound, and duplicate items convert back into coins. - Boards, piece sets and cases now appear in your language, alongside the usual fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.3.4 - Your daily streak, front and center — a new card on your profile shows your current streak right above your themes. - Never lose a move to a blip — if your connection drops the instant you move in an online game, that move is now safely resent when you reconnect. - Know when something's waiting — the More tab shows a dot when you have unread messages, friend requests, or challenges. - Clearer sessions — Settings now shows the actual device for each active session instead of "Unknown device". - Smoother clocks, a clearer Game Review evaluation chart, and assorted fixes and polish.

What's new in 1.3.3 - Make it yours — new players get a quick setup to pick their board, piece set, and accent colour, shown off on a live, self-playing board. Change it anytime in Settings. - Friendlier first steps — clear one-time guides explain how you earn and spend coins in the Store, and what each move rating means in Game Review. - Notifications, explained — we now tell you what you'll be notified about (challenges, messages, friend requests) before asking, and take you straight to settings if you'd turned them off. - Assorted fixes and polish across the app.

What's new in 1.3.0 - Play in your language — the whole app is now translated into Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese, French, and Hindi. Pick yours in Settings. - The Store is open — spend coins on premium boards and piece sets, equip your look from an inventory, and show your theme on your profile. Buy coin top-ups right in the app. - New piece sets, with dark pieces kept readable on dark boards. - Streak reminders — an optional nudge before your daily streak runs out. - See your coins as you earn them — a "+N coins" reward appears on the game-over screen, the daily-streak celebration, and when you solve a puzzle, with your balance updating live. - The end-of-game rating now shows a bullet, blitz, or rapid glyph, plus a new result-reveal animation when an online game ends. - Assorted fixes and polish across the app.

What's new in 1.2.0 - Puzzles — a brand-new tactics trainer. Work through an endless stream of rating-matched puzzles, build a solve streak, and reveal a hint when you get stuck. You earn a puzzle rating that moves as you solve — shown on your profile next to your bullet, blitz, and rapid ratings. - Pick your promotion — when a pawn reaches the last rank, choose your piece (queen, rook, bishop, or knight) instead of always promoting to a queen. - Polish and fixes across online play and Game Review.

What's new in 1.1.2 - Daily streaks — build a daily play streak from the home screen, with its own streak page and a celebration each time you keep it going. - Game Review now opens from your own side of the board. - Polish and fixes — perfectly centered screen titles, a bit more room in player cards, and the non-working "confirm move" setting removed.

What's new in 1.1.1 - Bigger, clearer board — pieces now fill each square and the coordinate labels are easier to read. - Role badges — admins, moderators, and testers now appear with a badge next to their name across the app. - Hot-seat (two players, one screen) — choose your side before the game (white, black, or random), with clearer player labels and a board that always starts from White's view. - Clearer, better-balanced sound effects. - Polish and fixes — a refreshed settings icon, a cleaner draw (½) symbol, a sign-in screen that fits smaller phones, smoother rematch and new-game, and faster Game Review loading.

What's new in 1.1.0 - Game Review now runs server-side: faster, more consistent, easier on your battery, and with a smaller app download. - The app now matches your device's light or dark theme. - New-game flow and back navigation are smoother. - Portrait layout improvements, sign-in fixes, and other stability improvements.

What's new in 1.0.1 • Fresh sound pack: all-new move, capture, and check sounds for a cleaner feel. • Send feedback right from Settings: tell us what you love or what is bugging you. • Rate your experience after reviewing a game. • Stability and polish improvements.