Solitaire

MobilityWare's Klondike has been on the App Store longer than almost any other card game and is still maintained. The rules are the ones everyone knows, with a one-card draw for an easy afternoon and a three-card draw when you want resistance.

What separates it from the dozen look-alikes is the surrounding structure: Daily Challenges that award crowns and trophies, a levelling system fed by points from every game, Winning Deals that guarantee a solution, and a Show Me How To Win feature that demonstrates a solvable line. Reaction stickers for iMessage are an odd but characteristic extra.

Most days start with the Daily Challenge, which hands out a crown if you clear it and feeds the monthly trophy. After that it's as many deals as you have time for, with unlimited undos and hints meaning a bad move never ends a game. Points accumulate toward levels and titles regardless of how you play.

You can hold the phone in either orientation, switch to a left-handed layout and pick from several scoring styles. Leaderboards and statistics are there if you want to compare, ignorable if you don't.

Longevity. This is the Solitaire many people installed on their first iPhone, and they come back to it because the save state and statistics are still there. The Daily Challenge system has also become the thing players measure other Solitaire apps against, and the million-plus ratings make it the default choice for anyone searching the category cold.

A green felt default with changeable backgrounds, card backs and faces, and chrome that has grown busier over the years with crowns, trophies and level badges. Portrait and landscape are both supported. Five screenshots are on the page and should show the Daily Challenge calendar alongside a deal in progress.

Over a million ratings at 4.7 and a description that states it's still being updated are about as reassuring as it gets. MobilityWare has built its business on card games, so abandonment is unlikely. Only the App Store is linked on this page, and there's no version string, so recency of the latest build isn't something we can confirm.

Rated 12+ and free with ads, which the listing states directly. A subscription removes the ads, opens future challenge days ahead of schedule and throws in four themes; the price isn't given in our data. Solitaire itself should play offline, though leaderboards need a connection and the listing doesn't say whether sign-in is involved.

Storage size isn't stated. No Play Store link appears here.