It has been more than six months since Amazon integrated the ComiXology app with the Kindle ecosystem, and it has been a sordid tale of mismanaged priorities ever since. Nearly all long-time users of the ComiXology app seem unanimous on one thing, the disastrous transformation that the once popular comics app has gone through post the Amazon takeover.
Unfortunately, most of the grouses with the comics app continue to haunt its users even today even though Amazon has promised to make things better with the app. There have been several updates as well in between though the thing is, ComiXology continues to disappoint its users big time. From issues with downloading the comic titles to loss of image quality, there seems no dearth of issues with the ComiXology app.
As reviewer Beltran revealed on the website ComicsBeat, downloading comics on his iPad took ages even though the reading experience has been satisfactory. Reading off the guided view or normal view has been largely okay though there have definitely been some loss in quality with some of the images. Beltran also lamented the lack of purchasing options from right within the ComiXology app.
So, while the overall experience with the app on the iPad has been largely below par, the same on the Mac is perhaps even worse. There is no option to sort the library as per series. The new Comics Beta option is a disaster too as the most it does is add a black background to the comics to perhaps bring about a full-screen effect. The same applies to the shopping experience as well though the only positive here, as Beltran described is the ease with which one can move from one issue to the next.
Similarly, long-time ComiXology app user Dean Simons too seemed critical of the app post the 4.0 update. Much of that has to do with the bugs that often would crop up in both the iOS and Android versions of the app. Subsequent updates from Amazon managed to lift things up but those have been minor improvements at best. Simons seems to be particularly critical of new downloads which he said are almost always accompanied by crashing or freezing of the device. The iOS version of the app however would crash less often but is still far more than it would with version 3.0.
Strangely, as Dean Simons found out, the Android version of the app would perform remarkably better with faster page turns and fewer crashes. The app though is still plagued by several issues such as the downloaded book would often refuse to open in offline mode and so on. Another issue to be faced is long boot times, which is common across both platforms. The lack of an HD badge when buying comics in high-quality format too is another pain point that Simons reported.
On the whole, as many of the long-time ComiXology users have reported, many of the problems now being faced with the app were not even existing with the 3.0 version. So, in effect, Amazon will have a lot of hard work to do to make the comics app reclaim its lost glory before it can think of making it scale new heights.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
