Chess ebook apps/viewers

I have purchased chess ebooks from the following 4 apps, and here is my order of preference in terms of helpfulness for the learner (this is about the apps’ functionality and not the titles they offer):

1. Gambit
2. ForwardChess (a close second)
3. Everyman
4. ePlusChess books

ePlusChess is simply a pgn viewer, and there is no engine associated with the app.

The remaining apps have engines, but Everyman does not allow the reader to play his/her own alternative moves in a given position for further analysis. So the engine can only evaluate the positions that are already in the ebook.

Gambit and ForwardChess, on the other hand, allow the reader to play his/her own alternative moves for a given position while the engine is running... to me, this is a HUGE GAME CHANGER. With these apps, whenever an author shows a variation that I don’t understand, I can now say “Wait, I can’t figure out why this line is no good for White... what if, on move 3 of this variation, White responded instead with [some-patzer-move-that-is-not-a-1-or-2-move-blunder-that-was-not-analyzed-by-the-author-but-is-still-beyond-my-skill-level]?”, play that move, and see the engine analysis to see all the “latent” (or blatant) threats I missed.

I give a +/= to Gambit’s app over ForwardChess because when the engine is running, you can simply tap on the first move of the engine’s analysis and it will show up on the board with the engine continuously assessing. With ForwardChess, you have to actually move the pieces. Not a big deal, but saves a little time.

Thanks for posting that Danny.

Having never bothered with e-books I have a stupid question - if I were to get the ForwardChess app, does that then work with any chess e-book?

As far as I can tell, you can only open up ebooks they offer from their apps. ForwardChess offers titles from several publishers including Quality Chess, Chess Stars, Chess Evolution, and Russell Enterprises (and others), but your question brings up two more important points ...

1. Some of the same titles, for whatever reason, are offered by both ForwardChess and ePlusChess. If you have a choice, I strongly recommend buying from ForwardChess for the reasons I posted above (the ability to use the engine and explore alternate lines while reading the ebook).

2. Everyman’s app, though not my favorite, does have the benefit of allowing one to open pgn files on its viewer. I can’t find the same option for the other apps.

3. ePlusChessBooks is the only one to offer Silman’s Endgame Course as an ebook.

And also point 4 ... dannyhume can’t count (numerically or tactically).

And point 5... Everyman’s app, therefore, is is the pgn viewer, the rest are perhaps more accurately called e-readers (correcting my opening post... don’t know how to edit posts from my mobile device).

Good review Danny.  Thanks!

You can try https://ebook.chessvision.ai/ it makes chess PDFs interactive. There is no need to purchase any special book format, just upload a PDF, let the app analyze it, and enjoy it!

ForwardChess is now publishing more resent Everyman books so that is good.

Some questions about ChessVision:
1. Is ChessVision a viewer only or can a user input their own moves that are not in a book and analyze those with an engine?
2. If there is an engine, which engine?
3. Are there titles that are already available (as in ForwardChess and Chessable) or does the user have to scan each page for every single book?
4. What a about books written in descriptive notation (DN)? Probably those cannot be done given thel limitations of computers regarding DN.

Chessify is another pdf viewer app. Have had issues trying to figure out how much time they give to analyze with a cloud engine (very little for the money, it if it was more clear, one could plan and decide more effectively).

In chessvision.ai Reader you have a fully functional analysis board with Stockfish, it's far more than a viewer. Besides making your own moves and analyzing with the engine, it also searches games databases for positions from books, and much more. You can read the discussion about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ijhc7y/i_made_ebook_reader_that_uses_ai_to_make_chess/ or see what it can do on https://ebook.chessvision.ai/ 

Does anyone know if the ePlusChess app still exists? I have been unable to find it on the Japan iOS Store. But I'm not sure if that's because they haven't made it to Japan yet or if the software is now defunct.

Note in the OP's initial post the statement:

"ePlusChess is simply a pgn viewer, and there is no engine associated with the app."

So you can use any PGN viewer.  In particular I recommend the free Chessbase Reader 2017 which is a viewer for PGN as well as several other popular chess games file types.  It can be downloaded here...

https://en.chessbase.com/pages/download

Thanks for the follow-up. Yes, I don't really mind if there's an engine or not; I just want to be able to read a book and see the moves, without having to get out a physical board or set out boards in chess.com or lichess.
The main reason I was particularly interested in ePlusChess was the presence of Silman's endgame book in their catalogue. For most of my needs, Forward Chess's app, Gambit Studio, and Everyman Chess Viewer do nicely. Until very recently, I've bought all my books as in-app purchases from within the app, but have just realised that it's possible to buy them on the respective companies' websites and have them sync to the iOS/Mac app (where the latter is available, as with Forward Chess). That's good for taking advantage of special offers.

 

That sounds cool.

Thank you so much for this tip. I’m going to save $3 on a book from Forward Chess 😀

How can I migrate ebooks I have in my Forward Chess mobile app to the Online app?

Same Forward Chess login shows purchased content in both. Instead of PC app you can also use the reader (works in browser). Iirc they are not updating PC app anymore.

If you find for whatever reason that they aren't syncing properly, and that you have 2 collections of ebooks separate from each other, I think the company's help desk will sort out your issues. They were very prompt and helpful when I contacted them with that problem.

By the way, I think Everyman should now be deleted from the list. The app (at least on iPad) doesn't seem to work anymore.

When I contacted Everyman about this, they sent me a link to a download page for each of the titles I had previously purchased. The files were in various more or less open formats. The package included a PGN and CBV (not sure what the latter is) in every case. Depending on the title, there were also Epub and/or Kindle files. Of course, that isn't as convenient as the custom app with built-in board, but at least I still have access to all the books I bought.

On IOS there is an app called Chess-Studio which is much better for reading PGN format books than Everyman app ever was. I'm not affiliated in any way, just recommending a great app.