Would it have been too much to ask for Amazon and ComiXology to iron out a few of these major kinks before rolling out what was already a very controversial update?Īnd again, couldn't they have done more to persuade users that there's a method to this madness?
Even minor website improvements could make this process better. And of course having to leave the app to go to is a major pain and far less conducive to binge-reading than the wonderfully seamless old app. The sorting function for comics that you already own is worse.
The browsing function is much less attractive. That never used to happen on the old app.Įven when the new app works as it is supposed to, it doesn't work nearly as well as the old app. I have several times had to put down the app and try again in the morning when comics would not download. When they do, downloads are often slow to the point of unusable. In my experience and the experience of various app reviewers, comics purchased at do not always appear for download in the app. "They failed to look at this announcement from the perspective of someone who hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks and months, and who doesn’t have direct access to the company’s thoughts and motivations. It’s incredible, but they seem to have forgotten that they were dropping in-app purchasing just weeks after they announced that they were in the process of being bought out by Amazon."Įven beyond the public relations blunder, Amazon and ComiXology's new app simply does not work well. "They couldn’t possibly have handled this one worse," Andy Ihnatko writes at Chicago Sun-Times. Yet Amazon and ComiXology dropped the ball when it came to public relations, making hardly any effort to persuade users to support the change beyond offering a $5 gift card, instead leaving them fuming about how ComiXology ruined its app - the new one sports a 1.5 star rating and over a thousand angry reviews - while industry insiders speculate that this is a scheme by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to hurt Apple and force people to buy Kindle Fires.
Also by ditching in-app purchases, ComiXology was able to escape Apple's controversial content restrictions. By forcing users to make web purchases, Amazon claims a larger revenue share and presumably so do comic book publishers. Theoretically, the change made sense. Although one-touch in-app purchases were much easier, a 30% cut of every purchase went to Apple. It often indicates a user profile.Ī couple of weeks later, ComiXology replaced its old app with a new app that removes in-app purchases, forcing users to make purchases on the ComiXology website which they can then download to the app. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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