Hello HN,<p>I've created a new Sudoku app for iOS and Android that prioritizes simplicity and privacy. It's free to download and use, and I'd be grateful for any feedback or suggestions.<p>Features:<p>> 4 difficulty levels, accessible at any time<p>> No personal data collection of any kind<p>> Clean, minimalistic design that focuses on the game<p>> Takes up significantly less space than other popular apps (by a factor of about 10x)<p>> Minimal use of advertisements<p>I was frustrated by how many of the popular Sudoku apps feel excessively over-engineered, consume a lot of storage space and some that even collect unnecessary personal information, like location and contacts. So I put this app together without any of those things (using flutter).<p>Links:<p>iOS: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/sudoku-puzzle-palace/id1668683822" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/app/sudoku-puzzle-palace/id1668683822</a><p>android: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kingfishertech.sudoku">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kingfisher...</a><p>Here's a screenshot of the main app page: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/FbCf2IJ" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/FbCf2IJ</a><p>Thanks for taking a look and happy solving!
Shameless plug: I built an open source, completely free, no ads/tracking whatsoever sudoku with a lot of bells of whistles. It’s only web based, so no native apps. Find it here: <a href="https://sudoku.tn1ck.com/" rel="nofollow">https://sudoku.tn1ck.com/</a><p>Source is at <a href="https://github.com/TN1ck/super-sudoku">https://github.com/TN1ck/super-sudoku</a> if anyone is interested
Honestly, there's nothing better than the Cracking the Cryptic app for sudoku, called "Sven's Sudoku Pad." People who love sudoku have congregated around that channel. It's updated regularly and there are a lot of puzzles that can be imported into it. It gives you very helpful pencil mark controls including colors and differently placed marks. There really just hasn't been another app that compares to the level of production for this Sven's.
I play sudoku daily and will give it a DL. That being said, I already see a big gripe from the screenshots: No pencil tool. At higher levels, it's critical. Will report back :)
For anyone looking for a great open source Sudoku app with no ads: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.moire.opensudoku&gl=US">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.moire.open...</a><p>This looks great but I was sad to see advertisements and consider that a bell if not a whistle. I would pay a few bucks for this if it could match the features of the above with this clean visual style.
The Sudoku app I currently play is this one: <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.secuso.privacyfriendlysudoku/" rel="nofollow">https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.secuso.privacyfriendlysu...</a> (found by searching Sudoku on F-droid)<p>My only beef with it is the difficulty. I feel that Hard is easily solvable without guessing but Challenging invariably forces me to resort to guessing at least once. (I believe that's the logic their underlying library uses). How does your app determine the difficulty of the puzzles?
My go-to for pen-and-paper style puzzles (including Sudoku, but mainly Loopy) is Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection [0]. It's extremely portable open source C, so if you can compute on it, you can probably compile STPPC for it.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/" rel="nofollow">https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/</a>
Scaling seems to be off for iPads. Downloaded but can’t even try it out because the start button is (mostly) off screen. 11” iPad Pro, 2nd gen, iOS 16.2
Really like the look of this based off images. Just downloaded on iOS and going to give it a try during my lunch. I've pretty much refused to play Sudoku on my phone due to the reasons you've listed. They all seem to have either massively intrusive ads, or they are ridiculously over designed. I'm looking forward to trying this out!
What about SudoQ[1]? That's the one I used many years ago during my sudoku phase. It's open source, very simple, accepts "drawing" input as well as regular keyboard.<p>1. <a href="https://github.com/timo-a/SudoQ">https://github.com/timo-a/SudoQ</a>
"No personal data collection of any kind" Doesn't your ads provider perform data collection?<p><a href="https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/privacy-policy-admob/" rel="nofollow">https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/privacy-policy-admob/</a>
Another shameless plug - I built a multiplayer sudoku game where you and multiple others can compete to finish the game first. It's a web app at <a href="https://countdoku.app/" rel="nofollow">https://countdoku.app/</a>
My personal favorite: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/not-evil-sudoku/id1614071642" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/not-evil-sudoku/id1614071642</a>