Comparison

PVChess Premium vs Lociform

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

PVChess Premium

Features
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Premium version of PVChess with full access, no ads, and offline play. Before purchasing PVChess Premium, try the free, ad-supported PVChess: Chess Tutor first. It offers the same core gameplay, so you can decide whether PVChess is right for you.

About

Lociform

Features
Read full description

A memory palace is the oldest study technique there is. Lociform makes it practical. Type what you need to remember. Lociform binds each item to a spot in a place you already know, with a vivid image that actually interacts with that spot. Then it walks you through the route out loud and brings each item back on a spaced-repetition schedule. WHY PUT THINGS IN PLACES Your memory for places is far better than your memory for lists, so you smuggle the list into a place. Roman orators used this to deliver speeches without notes. When Eleanor Maguire's team scanned ten of the highest-ranking competitors at the World Memory Championships in 2003, nine of the ten were using the method of loci, and they were not smarter than the controls and their brains were not structurally different. FREE, WITH TWO PALACES - A worked sample palace, one tap from first launch - A three-minute before-and-after test, so you see your own two scores - Starter decks: the 12 cranial nerves, the 8 carpal bones, the Krebs cycle, the first 12 letters of the NATO alphabet - Memory Walks read aloud while you look at each locus - Spaced repetition built on FSRS-6, showing the real interval on every button - Build a palace from your own photo, rendered with real depth - Full VoiceOver support, and a designed flat mode for Reduce Motion VERIFIED, NOT GUESSED For factual material Lociform uses a human-written hook library, each entry carrying the etymology that justifies it. Scaphoid is a boat because scaphe is Greek for boat. For the starter decks and any term in the library, on-device Apple Intelligence only phrases a hook it has been handed. For your own items with no library entry it may suggest an image, labelled AI suggestion. Every scene is labelled so you can see where it came from. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No account. No servers. No analytics. No third-party SDKs of any kind. Lociform makes no network requests at all. The depth model and the language model both run on your iPhone, so your palaces, your photos and everything you memorise stay on the device. ONE OPTIONAL UNLOCK Every feature is free. If you want more than two palaces, Unlimited Palaces is a single purchase that never renews and never expires. No feature is locked behind it, there are no ads, and if you ever lose access every palace you have built stays readable and walkable. HONEST ABOUT THE LIMITS The method of loci is good at ordered lists of discrete things. It will not give you understanding, and two items per locus is the sensible limit. Lociform says so inside the app, and sets out what the research shows alongside where that research is weak.

Screenshots

PVChess Premium3 screens
Lociform4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Lociform at Free against PVChess Premium's $0.99. PVChess Premium's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Lociform is free to download; PVChess Premium costs $0.99 up front. Lociform sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. PVChess Premium asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
PVChess Premium versus Lociform: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPVChess PremiumLociform
Price$0.99Free โ€” better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 โ€” better26.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size16 MB21 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJianfeng WuJOSHUA JOHN

In-app purchases

None

PVChess Premium

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Lociform

One-time1
  • Unlimited Palaces$9.99

Questions

Is PVChess Premium free?
PVChess Premium costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Lociform free?
Lociform is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do PVChess Premium or Lociform have ads?
Neither PVChess Premium nor Lociform shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PVChess Premium or Lociform?
PVChess Premium ships an update every 2 months, and Lociform every 2 months. Most recently, PVChess Premium was updated on October 28, 2026 and Lociform on November 6, 2026.

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