Sudoku Grab Removed From Sale in Japan

I just received the following email from Apple:

On 12/1/2010, we received a notice from Nikoli.Co.Ltd. that Nikoli.Co.Ltd. believes your application named "Sudoku Grab" infringes Nikoli.Co.Ltd.'s intellectual property rights. In particular, Nikoli.Co.Ltd. believes you are infringing their trademark.

You can reach Nikoli.Co.Ltd. through Jimmy XXXX (phone: XXXXXX, email: XXXX). Please exchange correspondence directly with Nikoli.Co.Ltd..

We look forward to receiving written assurance that your application does not infringe Nikoli.Co.Ltd.'s rights, or that you are taking steps to promptly resolve the matter.  Written assurance may include confirmation that your application does not infringe Nikoli.Co.Ltd.'s rights, an express authorization from Nikoli.Co.Ltd., or other evidence acceptable to Apple.  

Under our terms of agreement, Apple may remove your application from the App Store at any time.  You may remove your application using the steps provided below, for example, while you make any necessary changes to your application. 

Based on this I have removed Sudoku Grab from sale in Japan.

Tanks! Mayhem - available for the iPhone/iPad

Tanks! Mayhem is now live for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Get it now for $0.99!

Sudoku Grab Nominated for the Most Creative Use of iPhone Hardware

http://bestappever.com/v/cuap/305614901

If you like the app, why not give it a vote in this category.

Real time grab functionality

I've written up a blog post on how the real time grab feature works:

http://cmgresearch.blogspot.com/2010/01/augmented-reality-on-iphone-how-to_01.html

I've posted it on my new development blog rather than here as it's of more interest to iPhone developers.

Version 1.7.4

Several minor bug fixes in this version

• Tags on emailed puzzles are now encoded properly so spaces and funny characters all work ok.
• Screen timeout is disabled when you are playing a puzzle.
• A couple of weird display glitches are fixed - not sure when they appeared.

And, the big new feature:



You can now grab sudoku puzzles in real time! Just wait until the puzzle turns green and then touch the puzzle in the grey area - that will grab whatever puzzle was just recognised.

LEGO Robot Solves Sudoku

Check out this video of a lego robot solving a Sudoku Puzzle.

Version 1.7 is live!

Version 1.7 went live last night.

In the new version we've got:

• Internationalisation - you can now run Sudoku Grab in German


• Automatic grader - works out how hard a puzzle is based on how a person would solve it

I've also added a link to other application I've written - currently there's just Space Invaders, but hopefully the catalog will grow...

Someone called Mike asked in the comments if it would go back and grade already captured puzzles - unfortunately not at the moment, but that is quite a good idea.

I'll be interested to see how well the grader works in the real world - at the moment it is pretty simplistic. Automatic Sudoku grading seems to be a bit of an art form. So if you get any puzzles that you think are graded completely incorrectly use the email to a friend feature to send them to sudokugrab@gmail.com and I'll take a look.

Also, there's a great web site here: Sudoku Solver by Andre Stuart that has a huge amount of resources on this solving Sudoku puzzles. I used a lot of the explanations on the solving strategies to help build the grader.

If you are having problems with the latest version then please try the following steps:

• Power off and restart your phone - this should resolve issues with taking photographs of puzzles


• Uninstall Sudoku Grab completely and download it again - this should resolve any issues with the upgrade process not working as it should

A few people (well, quite a few) have pointed out the slightly embarrassing spelling mistake on the main menu - that's fixed along with a few minor bugs in the next update that is currently going through the Apple review process... So it will be a couple of weeks at least.