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A Long Time Coming: Klew for iOS Is Live

Henry Pendleton·May 17, 2026·4 min read
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v1.0 Is Live

Klew for iOS is officially on the App Store. Free. No ads. No paywall.

This one has been a long time coming, and I want to take a minute to say where it started.

It Started on the Couch with an iPad

The whole idea began with one frustration. I love crosswords. I'd grown up watching my dad solve them at the kitchen table, pen in hand. There's a tactile, slowed-down quality to that. You sit with a clue. You commit to a letter. You scribble in the margin.

Every crossword app I tried felt nothing like that.

Then I got an iPad and an Apple Pencil, and the thought wouldn't go away: a tablet plus a pencil is the closest thing to paper that a screen has ever gotten. So why couldn't a crossword app feel that way? Why couldn't solving on an iPad be quiet, paper-like, a little bit slow in the good way?

That was the spark. That's the whole reason Klew exists.

The Long Road to v1.0

I'm not going to pretend the path from "wouldn't it be cool if" to "live on the App Store" was a straight line. It wasn't.

The hardest part, honestly, was the thing that started the whole project. Writing a letter in a cell with the Apple Pencil and having the app actually recognize it. Handwriting loose enough to feel like paper, but tight enough that a hurried A doesn't end up logged as an H. It's the smallest detail and the biggest one. It's also not perfect yet. I'll keep working on it.

What kept me going was the same thing that started it. Sitting on the couch with the iPad in my lap, pencil in hand, solving a puzzle and thinking: this is the feeling I wanted.

What's in v1.0

The iOS app is a real, native solver. Not a webview wrapper. A few things I'm proud of:

  • Apple Pencil support on iPad. Write letters in cells, mark up the margin, switch to pencil mode when you're guessing. It feels like paper because that was always the point.
  • A daily mini, midi, and full puzzle, plus a Sunday weekly. A new free puzzle every day at each size. You can solve in a few minutes or sink into something bigger.
  • Three-tab layout. Home pulls you straight into today's puzzles, Browse lets you wander the archive, Profile is your stats, your achievements, and your stuff.
  • Stats and achievements that actually track. Streaks, clean solves, size diversity, all of it.
  • Follow constructors. Every puzzle has a real person behind it. You can follow them and see what they put out next.
  • Import .puz files. Tap a .puz in Files or Safari, send it to Klew, solve alongside your library.

Every Klew puzzle is reviewed and approved before it ships, edited from Charleston, South Carolina.

What's Next

A lot. There's a roadmap of things I want to add: a redesigned profile, themed puzzle packs, deeper social features, more puzzle sizes, more constructors. The shape of v1.0 is just the foundation.

But today isn't about what's next. Today is about the version that exists. The one I can hand to a friend and say, "Here. Try this."

Try It

Download Klew on the App Store. Solve today's mini. Tell me what you think.

If you want to follow along, you can find me here at klew.app or reach out at support@klew.app.

Thanks for being here. v1.0 is live.

Henry Pendleton is the founder and developer of Klew. He builds from Charleston, South Carolina.