# Oblique Strategies SE — user reviews

> 40 indexed App Store user reviews of Oblique Strategies SE by Nicolae Gherasim, rated 4.80/5 from 540 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/oblique-strategies-se/id1104927011/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/oblique-strategies-se/id1104927011.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 482 · 4★ 33 · 3★ 15 · 2★ 4 · 1★ 6

## What do users think of Oblique Strategies SE?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 💡 Innovative creative problem-solving tool
- ✨ Minimalist, clean interface design
- 🎨 Effective for breaking creative blocks
- 📱 Widget functionality for home screen
- 🎵 Particularly valuable for musicians and creators
- 🔄 Multiple card deck versions available
- ⚡ Simple and intuitive to use
- 🎯 Gentle, non-intrusive approach to inspiration
- 📚 Faithful to original Eno/Schmidt concept

**Cons**

- 🔄 Excessive card repetition in random selection
- 🐛 Widget functionality issues and glitches
- 🔋 Battery drain reported by some users
- 🎨 Dark mode widget support inconsistent
- ⚙️ Widget doesn't auto-sync with app
- 📊 Limited customization options
- 🎬 Flashing/shuffle animation between cards
- 🤔 Unclear menu navigation and dismissal

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Widget displays blank/doesn't load properly
- Battery drain issue (iOS 14.0.1)
- Widget doesn't rotate or update automatically
- Dark mode not fully supported in widgets
- App continues draining battery even after force quit
- Color accuracy issue (white on gray vs. black background)
- Splash screen appears unnecessarily on app launch

**Most requested features**

- Custom user-created cards functionality
- Blank card option
- Widget auto-refresh/shuffle without app opening
- Sequential card selection (no repeats until deck exhausted)
- Widget dark mode auto-switching with iOS settings
- Smaller widget size option
- Card history/undo feature
- Lock card in place option
- Widget and app card synchronization
- Ability to disable shuffle on app return

## Newest reviews (10 of 40)

### 5/5 — OS

*2023-09-01, version 8.0*

if eno, eno

### 5/5 — Better late than never

*2022-06-09*

I wish I'd known about this years ago! I formerly toured in a metalcore band and now compose & produce ambient/psytrance electronic music. I came across Oblique Strategies while reading up on Brian Eno's process. I've often used constraints to attempt to get unstuck. However, these cards offer many more methods. I once read a book called "One great insight is worth a thousand ideas". These cards will lead to many great insights.

### 5/5 — Would like to read all the cards

*2022-03-26*

I like the app but it would be good if it shuffled the whole deck of cards and then selected each card from the top down so you would eventually get to read all the cards in the entire deck. If this option was available I would give it 5 stars. As it is, the random selection tends to repeat cards and that can be frustrating at times.

**Developer response:** Thank you for review and suggestions. 
Regarding the cards repetition, this is happening because some statements exists in all the editions. You can solve that by selecting only one or two editions in Settings.

### 5/5 — The widget is blank- finally fixed with latest update

*2021-09-30*

Love the paper product. The app is nice. Very clean. Minimalist. But the daily widget on the home screen has never worked for me. It just gives a blank box.

None of the suggestions to fix the widget worked.
But the new version fixed the problem

**Developer response:** Thank you for the feedback. If still cannot see the widget, restarting the iPhone might solve the problem. Also, deleting and reinstalling the new version from the AppStore should solve the issue.
Thank you for using our app.

### 4/5 — Good app—and ideas for improvement

*2021-02-05*

A recent update seemed to have disable dark mode for the widget—would love a fix.

A few more ideas for improvement...

The widget card and in-app card should always keep in-sync. (Example: the widget updates each day, and when you open the app from same card should be displayed there—if you shuffle in the app the widget should match the new card too).

The widget card should have a way to shuffle without opening the app or waiting a day—I suggest a little circle loop arrow dimmed and in the bottom center in the same position as the ‘plus’ in the app version.

When you open the app please don’t show a splash screen—just go straight to the current card text.

Very good app—make it just a little tighter and you’ve got 5 stars.

### 5/5 — Same content

*2020-08-15, version 4.1*

This is a great inspirational app however I purchased their other oblique apps and got exactly the same content shown but in different methods. In a way that was good because I was able to choose which method I preferred out of the three however it was at a cost.

### 5/5 — super simple, super far out

*2020-01-23, version 3.3*

thanks for building an app version of this. i’m assuming an effort was made to make the results as random as possible, however, i get more frequent than seemingly probable repeats. i’ve never used a physical deck, so maybe this is the case with analog Oblique Strategies as well and i’m simply unaware. Brian Eno... cool guy.

### 5/5 — 素晴らしい

*2019-12-29*

素晴らしい。イーノさんのステキなカードです。彼の創造の源泉につながっていくものであり、固有の作品です。どのような時にも使えます

### 5/5 — Sometimes you need

*2019-09-06*

These directives are logs for stubborn camels that got stuck. It’s a pretty versatile thing...read the manual.

### 4/5 — Would love to be able to add my own cards to the deck

*2019-08-18*

This is a great app, but it would be great to have a function for adding our own cards to the deck.

**Developer response:** Thank you for your feedback. We will consider adding this option in a future release. Also, we have another app where the cards can be edited/added, called Sketch Ideas, which might fit your needs.

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — This is really dumb

*2021-03-02, version 5.4*

I don’t understand the point of this app, waste of money. I’ll change my review if I get any value from it.

### 1/5 — Not like the preview

*2019-12-08, version 3.1*

The video preview shows all black background but the white on black is more like white on gray

### 2/5 — Draining battery

*2020-10-13*

I recently noticed this app was draining my battery. I’ve been using the Oblique Strategies widget for years and never had an issue previously. Now I’ve had to disable it. iOS 14.0.1

Edited to add - I thought it was the widget but it was actually the app. I force quit the app and it was still draining my battery. I tried rebooting but it still showed up as draining my battery under settings > battery. Unfortunately, I had to uninstall the app.

**Developer response:** I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, we were not able to reproduce your problem. The app doesn't run in the background, so it must be something else. Are you using the Apple Watch version too? One suggestion can be to try to reinstall it from the Apple store and see if it happens again. Please drop me a message at contact@mindeon.com if you want to help us to sort this out.
Thank you

### 2/5 — Review

*2019-09-05, version 2.8*

Stop bothering users

### 3/5 — Needs customization

*2024-10-09*

You’re missing the blank card. That’s the most important. Please add a feature for adding cards of our own.

### 3/5 — Support Black Background Widget!

*2024-09-18*

Please support black background widgets! Ive had this app as a big widget on my home screen for years. Just wish it could be white text on black. It seems that’s only supported when entering the app, but not for widgets.

**Developer response:** Thank you for review. You can do that by adding the black background widget… it is the last one from the three widgets option.

### 3/5 — Improved widget

*2024-05-28*

The app is great and functional - and I love that there’s a widget! Just wish it was more functional. It doesn’t seem to rotate strategies or give you an option to refresh it. Only deleting the widget and then re-adding is what seems to switch it up, which is cumbersome.

This would be the most useful widget in the App Store if it was a little more dynamic, I want to shuffle it easily as I flick thru my home screens between other tasks….please fix!!

**Developer response:** Great idea, thank you for the feedback. Currently the widgets are changing automatically approximately twice a day.

### 4/5 — A good app with one complaint

*2024-01-08*

The app is good though I do wish there was an option to turn off shuffle when coming back to the main menu from the settings and the information, basically being able to lock the same card in place or having a history/undo feature would be great.

### 4/5 — Very cool, very useful, almost 5 stars

*2022-12-04*

I love the idea of this app but I feel like it really needs user cards added.

I’d love to have a custom deck, one of my own strategies, that can be mixed in with the others. 

This would be huge as it allows my older self, full of creative ideas, to give my future self little barrier breaking advice. Please add custom decks!!!! Thanks :)

### 4/5 — Great! Widget needs auto light/dark option.

*2021-05-22*

Simple and minimal; exactly as it should be. The only thing lacking is an option for the widget to switch from light to dark automatically with iOS system setting. Add this and it’s perfect!

**Developer response:** Thank you very much for review and suggestions. Will definitely add auto light/dark in our next update.

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — Updated?

*2026-04-05*

Does this update include the newest cards? I know the blurb says it’s been updated. The fediverse bot seems to have a lot more cards I’ve never seen in the iOS app.  Still the best logjam breaker that seems to be tilted towards musicians. Dunno if the knockoffs can say the same.

### 5/5 — The gentlest push

*2026-04-05*

The creative process is more fragile than people admit. Not dramatically fragile — not the romantic collapse of the tortured artist. Quietly fragile. A line that won't extend itself. A chord that knows something is wrong but won't say what. The white resistance of a canvas that has decided, for now, not to cooperate.

I've tried many things in those moments. Walking away. Forcing through. Asking someone. None of it feels quite right, because the problem isn't information — it's perspective. You're too close. You've been staring at the thing so long it has stopped being a thing and become a wall.

Oblique Strategies understands this at a level most creative tools don't bother with. It doesn't optimize you. It doesn't gamify your output or track your streaks or tell you that you've been 43% more productive this week. It gives you a card. One sentence. Sometimes cryptic, sometimes uncomfortably obvious, occasionally so precise it feels like someone has been watching over your shoulder for the past two hours.

Eno and Schmidt built the original deck in 1975 for exactly these moments — for the studio, for the deadlock, for the 3am session where everything sounds like furniture. The iOS version carries that spirit without diluting it. No noise. No dashboard. Just the card, and the silence around it.

You don't have to do what it says. That's almost the point. The value isn't in the instruction — it's in the sudden awareness that there was another direction all along. The push is so gentle you barely feel it. But the room shifts.

Worth every cent for anyone who makes things and occasionally, inevitably, gets stuck.

### 5/5 — Great to kickstart a stuck mind

*2026-02-23*

Any card you see will cause you to have a new perspective on whatever difficulty you perceive.

### 5/5 — OS

*2025-12-28, version 10.5*

It's Oblique Strategies for the iPhone

### 5/5 — Thanks, DB and BE

*2025-09-10, version 10.2*

Essential.

### 5/5 — love the widgets

*2024-08-11, version 9.1*

would love to see a smaller widget option tho

### 5/5 — 💯🧠🪄💽

*2024-05-19, version 8.9*

Ways to think ..🧐

### 5/5 — need a widget for this 🥹

*2024-04-13*

would be really nice

### 5/5 — Ily

*2023-11-19, version 8.3*

No seriously

### 5/5 — Applicable app

*2023-09-22*

An applicable app for those who may need a little swipe, tap, or shake to inspiration.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-05.*