They NYT puzzles are only 'locked' for the day they are released then either at midnight or whenever the next edition comes out (which will have the solution for the previous day's puzzle) you can either d/l the 'unlocked' version and/or enter the code to unlock the solutions as it is published along side the puzzle file download link.

I just have always been behind on the puzzles so I never really have to deal with 'locked' puzzles.

As far as the layout...if there is a way to reduce x-word's (or is it Xword or X-word...what is the name really? hehe) anyway, if the actual toolbar withing the software could be re-thunk it would really improve things. Something to consider is to actually rotate the display to portrait mode. While that does indeed reduce the size of the puzzle, it will provide much more room for buttons and some sort of text entry. Look at the BeCrossword layout. Not perfect but it does work easily and it not hard to follow.

I think one issue that is a problem is trying to display the clues on the same screen as the puzzle. There is simply not sufficent room for that on the tablets...just as with my nx73v.

I buggered something on my tablet last night and I suspect it was when I was trying to clean up the repository list so I might not actually even get to play with the xword software tonight at all. sniffsniff...

Like GA mentioned some sort of Graffiti like entry option sure would be sweet...but is there anything even close yet? I know there is a native handwritting input option but I only have given it a cursory look. Don't know if it is even possible to add a mod to emulate something like Graffiti input with existing libraries???? Woud be nice though.