Omni Crosswords 4+

If you’re into crosswords, you should already have this app on your phone. I’d say it’s second only to the NYT crossword app; you get access to 6 different high-quality crosswords a day from several notable newspapers. I would absolutely be willing to pay a few bucks for this app, and I would encourage the developer(s) to create some sort of monetization strategy or donation system so users can support them.

The single problem this app has is that its in-game UI is somewhat clunky. When entering clues, part of the puzzle is always obscured, meaning you need to scroll back and forth as you go. Also, I think the NYT interface (in which the cursor automatically skips filled squares) should be an inspiration for future development here.

However, I highly appreciate the use of native apple interface features, such as the keyboard. So many apps overlook how this affects user experience, but the dev(s) here totally get it!

If the dev(s) could rearrange the interface to eliminate these very minor issues, my review is easily 5 stars.

QUICK EDIT: It would also be nice to have optional notifications for individual subscriptions. For example, I like doing the USA Today puzzle and wouldn’t mind a reminder when the next day’s crossword is published.

Thank you for the feedback! Skipping filled words is coming soon. I'm aware of the keyboard covering up the puzzle and scrolling issues - I'm working on a fix that would keep the native keyboard. Notifications may take a while longer, but look forward to an update soon!

Edit: It now skips filled words, and I've released an update that hopefully solves most of the scrolling/hiding issues.

It’s free, so I can’t really complain. I love that I can do crosswords from different papers and it’s in one app. No ads which is pretty awesome, I would gladly pay for it.

However, there are a few things worth noting. I wish there was an area inside the app to submit bug reports. I’ve run into a few issues the past 3 months or so and want an easy way to submit them. I don’t think sharing on the App Store page is great but I didn’t see another way.

It kills my phone battery. I am on an iPhone 12 with latest iOS. Working on 2 crosswords kills my battery from 90% to ~50%. Maybe this is an iPhone issue but I also notice my screen gets dark when on this app and I can’t adjust it to be brighter (brightness is already at 100).

There seems to be a lot more bugs since last month (early June), e.g. app doesn’t refresh to show new puzzles no matter what I do, some puzzles appear broken and can’t enter text into squares, etc. Just today, 3 crosswords appear twice and I can’t enter text into any of them without it kicking me back to the puzzle list screen.

All that said, it’s free, no ads, simple UX, so this is my favorite crossword app by far.

I'm glad you like it. In the future, the best way to submit bugs in the future is through the support page: https://rrnarayan1.github.io/omni-crosswords/
I'll add a link in the app for this.
I generally try to keep users informed on issues I know using the in-app alerts as well. Feel free to reach out via the support link with issues you see and I'll try to take a look.

Love that I can finally get some of these favorite crosswords without paying for the paper! Love that you can choose to use the timer or not. Would love to see two things: 1. Make the clues bigger! Some of us don’t have 20/20 vision, and the minuscule clues are SO very hard to read, even on my large iPad. 2. Allow us to tab to the next word. Having to click the > on the screen to get to the next word is frustrating.

Hi there, changing the clue font size was added in an earlier update. The latest update also supports using tab to skip to the next clue.