A couple of months ago, Amazon shuttered the dedicated comiXology apps for Android and iOS and incorporated the entire comic buying and reading experience into the Amazon Kindle app for all platforms, as well as the Kindle e-reader. The entire comic reading experience has not been very good and the company has vowed to make some big changes in the coming months.
In the coming weeks, Amazon will be launching a beta version of the ComiXology’s web-reading client that will include double-page spread, new zoom in/out functionality and vertical scroll while reading. It won’t support Guided View yet, this is something they are working on next. Additionally, Amazon said it was working to fix a problem with its store algorithm that causes the software to show results for novels and non-fiction books when customers search for comics, manga and graphic novels. You will soon be able to filter your library in the Kindle app to make it easier to hide all your comics, or alternatively, only show your comics. This does not have a timeline, but should happen in the next couple of months.
New Releases is a great way for digital comic book shoppers to discover new publishers or just to see what is notable. This experience has been very lackluster so far, but some big changes are already live. For New Releases –an issue has been fixed where content from 90 publishers were not visible in the All New Releases widget at the bottom of the page. You can continue using the publisher filter to narrow down your results from select publishers. A new section called ‘Explore More New Releases” on the New Releases page, which shows all weekly releases in alphabetical order by title. After these New Releases updates, you will start to see improvements to the Comics Deals page to help make it easier and faster to navigate a selection of discounted titles.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.