Shortyz Crosswords

Like many others, I've also used this app for several years. Unlike them, I'm not having any trouble with it at all (with the settings I use, anyway, and on several devices too). Works great, just like it always has. My one gripe is the loss of puzzle sources. On any given day, it used to download anywhere from 6-10 puzzles (Philadelphia Inquirer, L.A. Times, Joseph Crosswords), but now, it's 3. Never more, never less. The loss of variety is a bummer, but it's still good!

Like many others, I've used this app for a number of years and never had any issues. But recently, no mistakes are being picked up and clues that intersect down and across have had interchangeable letters. For example, one across clue ended in an "r", but should have been a "t" because the down clue answer was "tree". On another clue, I typed in random letters and no errors were shown. And yes, I had the settings set to show incorrect answers. I hope you are able to correct this issue.

This app used to be excellent. However, it is at the mercy of individual newspapers and their respective formats. If the format changes the puzzle does not download (and there is no feedback to the user as to what failed). I have used the app for 6 years and the following newspapers have stopped downloading: NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, and Newsday. Just got a new tablet with Android 11. App has become almost unusable. Seems to be an issue with screen resolution.

Have used this app for a long time. I have always enjoyed that format but recently it seems to have developed a glitch. After my last phone update the keyboard with arrows is tiny and pretty much unusable. I can use the regular keyboard but it makes it much harder to move to different clues. Hoping the glitch is fixed or addressed soon.

I have loved and used this app for years. Recently though (probably android 11 update) it started having keyboard issues. My tablet updated to Android 12 and the built in keyboards stopped displaying correctly, and forcing the native android keyboard shows me the whole keyboard, but stops taking input after one or two letters. I don't know if the app is still being supported by the developer, but I would be willing to buy a fixed app.

I really loved this app until the user interface changed. It used to work beautifully with my native keyboard (SwiftKey,) but now I have to use the in-built interface. Also, whereas I used to see only the clue on which I was working, either across or down, now it shows both clues. I really don't like that change, I like working in one direction at a time. It seems like this should be an option, but I can't see any setting for it. Still, the crossword puzzles are good.

I've been a long time user of this app. I love the simplicity and straight forwardness that the developer has put into this app. No ads or extra BS just a good crossword app. However the home screen of this app has been buggy for years and gets hung up on any touch input when trying to select a puzzle. Sometimes it's so bad that I can't even scroll. Unfortunately there's no better app out there so I guess bugs and all I'll still use this app.

Love this crossword app! I have only one complaint: I usually do "show errors" at the very end of the puzzle to get the last 1 or two letters, then forget to turn off "show errors" before I start the next puzzle. I think show errors should be automatically turned off, or a setting to turn it off, at the start of every new puzzle

I have enjoyed this app for years, but I am sorry to say it is now unplayable, literally. Pressing the letters seems to result in letters at random! Such a shame. (Former review: I love this app. It works perfectly and it has several options so you can personalize it. Plus, there are many sources for the puzzles to select from, so you can pick your favorites.)

Great crossword experience. Good selection of puzzles to download. User interface works well. Android 11 upgrade happened and since then the soft keyboard has been messed up (small one and the with-arrows one). It's shrunk and displayed shifted over the left 2/3 of the screen. The keys act like ghost keys as if they're located in their usual places. I did a reboot and that fixed it. Today it's screwed up again. Native keyboard takes up too much screen space then stops working after one word.

There is an extremely annoying issue with the app that needs to be resolved. When you work on a puzzle it no longer saves your progress or record if you have finished a puzzle. I find myself having to start puzzles over from scratch everytime I back out. Now it's not even giving me the completed screen when i finish a puzzle! I love this app and will change my review to 5 stars if this is resolved. Until then, the app is pretty much unusable.

Great app! Once i figured out how to use the native keyboard that was a huge upgrade. However you lose the arrow navigation buttons. I recommend having a button on the app keyboard to advance to next clue in same direction. Also, i like to try to do puzzles in one go with mistake highlighting turned on, and I start over after one error. Reseting the puzzle entails deleting from the list and then re-downloading the day's puzzles. It would be great to have a reset puzzle option in the puzzle list context menu (next to the delete button)

I really love this app! It has a lot of customizable settings that let you change how you navigate through the puzzles, and I really enjoy the ability to go down the clues list and enter answers one by one without having to see the whole puzzle. For some reason though the LA Times puzzle is being uploaded from 2018 instead of 2021?

Mostly I love this app. Free, no ads... and usually at least a little better than average puzzles. Among my very few and fairly minor complaints: sometimes I don't have a complete keyboard and I have to close and reopen the app to fix that. And I wish the creator would give me some kind of option to solve cryptic crosswords. Maybe a separate app?

While still the best crossword app going, the "refresh" that causes the puzzle list to always go to the top, is really annoying. I finish a puzzle, try to tap on the next puzzle, from whatever day I happen to be working on, and it scrolls back to the top. This results in seemingly endless scrolling, to get back to the place I was working on. Could this be a feature we could toggle, in a future release?

Basically the perfect crossword app. No fluff, no invasive ads, nothing but great crosswords sourced for free from all over, every single day. NYT has nothing on this. Keep in mind that it hasn't been updated in quite some time, however. Remains to be seen whether it'll become abandonware

I have enjoyed this app for years. My only complaint is that the standard keyboard is horribly sensitive since I got a pixel 4. I get unexpected input if a finger gets anywhere near it. I've had to switch to using the native phone keyboard which is not as well suited to puzzles (no arrows,etc) but at least only does what I tell it to do.

This used to be a fantastic app. However, it has recently become so slow, it is virtually unusable. The app takes a long time to load, screen transition time lags horribly, puzzle completion is often not registered, and it is not possible to quit the app without force closing it.

This app certainly has playable crossword puzzles, but the interface is very clunky. Moving between clues is unintuitive and broken, finishing words going down automatically takes you out of the clue order and starts you below the last finished word, and the puzzle zoom reminds me of websites in the early 2000s. By making the user interface smoother, this app would be great, but i can't get past how broken it feels.

Have loved this ap for years, but now the screen brightness changes with every selected box or direction change. It also seems to be activating every icon it overlays on my desktop, causing programs to start and run whe I'm playing. Too frustrating as this is my go-to game to relax. It's causing more stress!!! Thanks for the memories, uninstall.

I believe that this app's usefulness is on the decline. The reason that the LA Times crossword no longer loads is because the paper changed its puzzle format so it is no longer a .puz file. And the NY Times is about to do the same thing. So unless the app is rewritten to access the new puzzle format, it will no longer load the LA Times or the NY Times. A victim of progress.

Something's gone wrong with Shorty'z. Loved it for years, especially because it let me download NYT puzzles from my subscription there. A better solving environment than the NYT app - cursor arrows, one-touch switching between down and across. But downloads stopped April 29 and my report of the problem to the author brought no response. Orphanware?

No longer downloads current LA Times crosswords. The app has been downloading puzzles with the correct month and date , but the year is 2018. This has been going on since late April, and no one seems to be able to provide an answer as to why. The developer has not answered my email regarding the problem, and an email to the LA Times crosswords was returned as undeliverable. Too bad, as this was a very good app prior to this problem.

App now highlights any typos as a 'red box' mistake. When you manually turn it off, it soon changes back. I even turned the feature off permanently in the settings page, but it still turns back on. I enjoyed the app before that, now I'm deleting it. There are other apps that don't force this, bad decision by the developers. Bye Shortyz!

2022: Adding 1 star bc I learned NYT is at fault for that issue and I still like the game mechanics, but I still think the dev has abandoned this app. 2021: Can't use anymore. Developer hasn't updated since 2018. Puzzle providers are falling off the list with no Dev support. Prev: NYT won't download I use this app daily because I like the mechanics better than the NYT app, and the other puzzles available. But my subscription stopped downloading this week. It's still active and hasn't expired.

Love the app. Have had it for years. Just now it has started to freeze (when opening, scrolling puzzles, and even solving puzzles). I closed it and cleared the cache. Still the same thing when I tried to use it again. I'll uninstall and re-install and see if that fixes it.

Noted this last week that Universal stopped loading. Either the syndicate has moved the page or they are charging for it now. People have complained the app is slow and slowing down. The trouble here is old smartphones with mostly full memories. On my old phone the puzzle had slowed to a crawl, even after reinstalls. I got a more capacious smartphone and the speed "healed." This app is, by and large, a labor of love. Cut the developer some slack.