Go Books Reviews

by Sprocketsandrockets

I've enjoyed reading a few of these books now, and would recommend GoBooks except for the hugely annoying problem that it frequently forgets where you are in the book. It is very frustrating to reopen a book wanting to pick up where you left off only to see the title page yet again.

1. Fix the issue with forgetting your current page.
2. Add bookmarking.
3. Fix consistency issues with the example boards in the books - sometimes you can step through the shown sequence, other times when you tap the board it just clears the numbered stones and makes you play the sequence yourself. The Graded Problems books are especially annoying in this regard, as sometimes for no discernible reason the 'grading' feature isn't there, you just play stones with no feedback other than turning the page.
4. The ui and board interactions are frequently laggy. What's so hard about drawing a circle that GoBooks has to think about it for a whole second before actually doing it?

by MawMaw Liza

I find no way to find the price of a book, or even get the book up to even look into the free chapter. PLEASE HELP ME, or I will have to give GoBooks a worse rating. It probably is a great app if I could find how to use it.

by Linuxdaemon

This format is really a revolutionary way of viewing go books. So for that GoBooks is really great. As a book app though the interface is really frustrating.

Bookmarks are able to be set but I have no idea how you actually view them again. There is no index of bookmarks or anything to view ones that are set. Adding notes is a cool feature but it displays as if the note is part of the document with a confusing bookmark icon next to it.

You can recover purchases on other devices using an email address, but it isn't a synced book. So you don't transfer your progress in a book or any notes or bookmarks.

I also wish there was some integration with smartgo kifu where I could send problems from books over to that app so I could track ones that I am having difficulty with all in on place.

I think this has a tremendous amount of potential, and there really isn't any other app competing with this. I just hope the overall interface can evolve into something truly amazing.

by YokoNakajima

Smart go books would be perfect were it not for the fact that if anything goes wrong, you have to figure it out on your own. I was looking at the sample pages of Tesuji by Davies, and got stuck in it for day's, which means I couldn't look at any of the books I had already purchased. Apparently I had to touch screen the top left in RAPID SUCCESSION in order to get out of that mess. I am not so sure though, and I don't want to go through that horror again to find out.

by Generic Nickname Ffa

a wonderfully extensive repository to find all the books you need in several languages. my only complaint is that the reader lacks a few tools (such as highlighting) that makes it less useful than it could be. but for the reduced price of the books available here, it’s a small enough quibble to make this a wholly worthwhile investment.

by CastIronFoody

Reading through books about Go are difficult. At least for me as a single digit kyu, it is difficult to follow diagrams. Either there are too many or ones with too many moves are difficult to read out. But the use of interactive diagrams makes this so much easier!

Two comments. For the developers, allow us to bookmark and comment the books. For the authors, take the time to take advantage of the interactive diagrams. For example, the 501 Opening Problems book is great. It would be even better if the author showed a seq. to get to the problem in the setup diagram.

Thanks to both the developers and the authors for taking advantage of a great platform to do more than you can in print'

(now if KGS would just come up with an iPad app.)

by Vosechu

Love the books and the format is stellar. The Janice Kim books in particular seem to have gotten a lot of love and attention where the questions are on a diff page than the answers.

The goban is also excellent. It's so nice to be able to step through the go reviews and problems as I read.

by Brentus

If you want to study go, GoBooks should be a no-brainer. You can play through the diagrams right in the books, which is really handy. The books cost money but you can read sizeable samples before buying any of them. It's really amazing and I hope it gets even more books over time (and it has been doing that regularly).

by Dontshootiowa

I’m currently a 5k and member of AYD. I’ve been playing for about 3.5 years. I have found GoBooks invaluable in making Go book more accessible. Being able to play through the diagrams/examples is a very effective way to learn.

One suggest, I wish they would make GoBooks compatible with the apple keyboards. Being able to click through the diagrams would be much better than touching the screen all the time or having to reposition the mouse.

Thanks for a great app.

by Tboomer

...for an amateur player like me. Two introductory books are available if you are new to the game, one for $5 and another for $9. But that is a very reasonable price for these works. It is great how the diagrams show all the moves by double-clicking. This is a great feature. And I can read one chapter for free is a bonus (a la Kindle). Super app, I hope more titles become available....

by Sactjs

Excellent app for go players of all levels. Great collection of go books and I love how you can play the moves on the diagrams within the books. Only 2 minor things that bug me about GoBooks which I hope they can fix in a future update - I am prompted to enter my apple store password every single time I use GoBooks to read a go book, and 2) I can't find a way to bookmark my page in the book!

by I Don't Want A Nickname.

I love it for learning Go, but more than that, it makes iPhone/iPad learning exactly how it should be. Wherever I am, I buy a book, read some ideas, apply them in the interactive game diagram, and keep going. Awesome.

Also, the book selection has gotten better and better over time, and is now fantastic. Most of my favorites (missing only the Elementary Go series) are there. Plenty for anyone to learn from.

by CS(citizen Science)

Learning Go Game (Weiqi 围棋, in Chinese) needs good books. It can be old fashioned paper ones, along with a board and two buckets of chess, typically a well-lit area, and tons of space.

Or this can be anywhere, as long as you have access to your screen. GoBooks not only lets you access a tons of books (many with free chapter or two), but also bring the learning into 21st century. No longer you will have to have the physical board and go pieces, you can interact the puzzles and games right in the game.

GoBooks is also very considerate to put the puzzle/quiz and its answer separated by pages. Very nice detail.

Just got GoBooks and definitely looking forward to go back and get new books within GoBooks!

One thing for family sharing, the in-app purchases are not automatically shared within family devices. But if you click the “gear” button at the top left, and register the original purchase with an email address that family have access to. New devices can be registered with the same email address. After confirming the new device from the link sent to the email address. A simple restore previous purchases (from the same gear button) would show all the books you’ve purchased. Now all family members are on the book.

by Happy User 99999999

The ebook format used in GoBooks was designed with go books in mind. The diagrams, which are key elements of go books, have powerful features. When reviewing a game rather than just studying the numbered stones you have the option of actually stepping through the moves and watching the board evolve. Also, you can play problems out in GoBooks .

I had a small library of paper books which I've been replacing with Go Book versions because they're so much better than paper.

by Lyon Artime

To give context to this review, I am an 11k player who already owns SmartGo's Pro app. That app brought me from 18k to where I am now, and I got GoBooks with hopes of breaking the single digit barrier.
I'm happy to say that my expectations are more than surpassed. GoBooks contains 8 books currently, each containing free chapter samples that by themselves justify this download. These 8 books cover every skill level, from the most basic of introductions to high level strategy analysis. There's commented game collections of double digit kyus and the best matches of Go Seigen. You can choose to purchase the books in-app at any time, with prices ranging from 4 to 9 dollars.
Quite frankly, there's no reason not to get this FREE app.

by Machogaucho

I realize that I'm not at a skill level to really push this Go engine too hard but I've played for several years and find GoBooks to be at an excellent level for me. Unless I get a significant handicap, it can spank me. I'm looking forward to getting stronger; to fight back.

The refresher problems help with making many tactical problems, that you end up seeing all the time in matches, more obvious. Also, the historical matches, which are somewhat commented on, are much easier to follow and watch unfold than in the Go books I have. Again, some folks probably can look at a page of numbered stones and see how it all came to end game, but for me, being able to move ahead move by move is a valuable tool.

Finally, watching my 10yr old son and another adult friend of mine learn Go on GoBooks makes me see the advantage it gives as a beginner teaching tool.

by Terri Schurter

Think of it as Kindle for your go books, only MUCH better.

SmartGo Books brings true mobility to reading go books. It's easy enough to slip a go book into my purse, but when I hit the first diagram with more than a handful of numbered stones I wish I was sitting next to a real board with a set of stones so I can play out the diagram. My 7k brain just isn't capable of reading complicated diagrams without a real board. With SmartGo Books, however, I can see the stones appear on each diagram one stone at a time, so I don't need to be sitting next to a go board to fully appreciate the book.

SmartGo Books on the iPad offers a sense of context by showing multiple diagrams with accompanying text. SmartGo Books for iPhone, while more compact, makes it possible to continue reading when it isn't convenient to carry the iPad.

After using SmartGo Books I would never consider purchasing a digital copy of a go book in any other format if it were available as a SmartGo Book. I'm really hoping to see some of my favorite classic titles available soon. I'd be happy to repurchase the best of them so I could read them with SmartGo Books.

GoBooks is attractive, free, and easy to use. Every go player should have it. Download GoBooks and read the samples to see for yourself how great it really is.

by Open Awareness

It’s so helpful to be able to play through examples. 100 books each with free chapters you can try. Then buy and read them here or in your Mac.

by Arcsech

The interactive diagrams make this way better and than using paper books and a physical go board. The ebooks in GoBooks are also much cheaper than their paper counterparts - on the order of a third of the Amz prices. There's also a MacOS app that you can share your purchases to, although it doesn't sync your position (yet?).

by So Good It’s Great

I am beginner Go player (even though I have played for years off and on). Recently I tried to find some good introductory books (ideally in electronic format). I failed. It seems the few available where printed versions and it was really hard to choose which one I wanted to invest my time in.

Along comes GoBooks. It makes choosing the right book a lot easier with careful reviews and introductions, and it makes the material easy to electronically. (I still love paper books, but do find i do most of my reading on my iPhone/iPad these days).

Great companion to the Smart Go Board app.