I don’t know if you’ve heard but Amazon has just launched its ComiXology Update 4.0 with emphasis on the ZERO! This has made a lot of readers and customers very unhappy, including me. I was so annoyed that I did a livestream on this topic last night. It’s a topic which is very close to my heart, as you will probably know if you’ve been reading my reviews for a while.
To cut a long story short, Amazon have made the digital comic book reading experience much much worse. They’ve also managed to make it very user-unfriendly. What the @*?<> is going on? Now you can only read comics on the Kindle Reader, which was not designed with comic books in mind. It’s for prose books, of course. Imagine taking all the pleasure out of reading a particular format. You’d think Amazon would be looking to attract more users and sales. I don’t see that happening now.
Two of my favourite parts of the ComiXology desktop app have been removed: the “Guided View” feature and the “Browse Pages” feature. The Guided View was one of the best things about the original app. It took you through the comic panel by panel, zooming in where appropriate and delivering a very satisfying comic book reading experience. The Browse Pages feature let you easily jump ahead (or back) to a specific page. Not anymore.
I go into more detail in the video and show examples of the old reader and the new one. I’d love to know what you think.
Thanks for reading!
-Wakizashi, *realizing I sound like a middle-aged man moaning about comics. What was the name of that character from The Simpsons? Comic book guy?*
Wakizashi's Reviews 
Comic Book guy, I think. We’re now both middle-aged men shouting at clouds – about comics!
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Comics Rot Your Brain after all!
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wow. My first comment wasn’t allowed because it had “lm*o” (uncensored) at the end
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Really? No way! Maybe it went into the spam folder. I will check.
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No, it actually said, “this comment is not allowed”!
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WordPress 1984!
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I’ve never used the service, but heard good things about it. Now, apparently, it’s pretty useless… shame on Amazon
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You can still read the comics but the whole experience has been downgraded! The desktop Kindle app is better than the Cloud Kindle app, which is weird… But both are worse than the ComiXology one.
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I think Amazon have done a bit of hatchet job on the desktop reading experience for users of Comixology. It wouldn’t; surprise me at all if Amazon bring out a color Kindle style comics version of their E reader soon at some point – otherwise I don’t see why they would have bothered acquiring Comixology in the first place.
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Let’s hope they do. I’d love a traditional American comic book-sized E Reader š
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Me too, I think its something that will probably be on the cards. There’s been rumours of a new Kindle circulating for a while now.
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Yeah, reading comics on e-readers is a pain already, Amazon making it harder is not appreciated!
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As Paul mentioned in another comment, maybe they will bring out a dedicated and deadly E Reader for comics. Maybe…?
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Hmm, maybe.
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I heard about this back in January, here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=344435
I wondered how it was going to hit folks and now I guess I know. Amazon already has the fire tablet, so they have the hardware, it would appear they need better software. Makes me wonder why they didn’t just repurpose the comixology app.
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I know. The PC app was good. Now it’s frustratingly bad. But what do customers matter, eh?
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Amazon definitely has a track record of buying up “things” only to make them defunct. Half the time they never replace it with something good.
So you might be screwed, I am sad to say….
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Another upsetting side to it is I was using the cool Guided View feature for my YouTube comic book reviews. Now I have to figure out a way of doing it during the editing process. It’s doable, just going to add more time to an already long process.
I’m seriously considering stopping buying American comics and just using a Jack Sparrow site to read them. Well done Amazon. I wonder how many customers you are sending to the Black Sails sites?
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Ahhh, I didn’t even think about the side effects for videos. That will, what, double your work load?
Yep, a lot of decisions almost seem tailor made to make people decide to hoist the Jolly Roger. It just makes no sense to me…
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I know I’m probably a fool but I’ve always made an effort to support the creators, the artists, the writers by buying the digital versions, even though I knew that I didn’t “own” them. Plus I was never really sure if digital sales even counted towards sales numbers because they NEVER release the numbers. It’s looking like more manga reviews and physical copy reviews in the future.
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I completely understand supporting something you like. Mrs B reads scanlations of the manga Skipbeat as they are released online but we’ve also made an effort to buy each new volume as it is released here in the US. I think it’s up to vol 43 or so?
You should review old comics you own. That would be good š
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Good idea! And cool to hear Mrs. B is a manga reader š
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She tends to read a lot of fan translated web comics. Whenever she starts laughing I’ve learned to just ignore her and not ask “what?” because 9 times out 10 I tend to regret asking š
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Ouch, that hurts! Never used comixology, but I use similar readers for manga. I’d be rightly… angered (dear WP1984, hopefully anger is still acceptable ;)) if something like this happened to Manga+!
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Amazon upsetting customers and LOTR fans!
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Hmmmm, sorry to hear that. I’ve never used the app but have heard of it. Any chance you can restore to a previous version with the features you used? I have a love/hate relationship with amazon. They do offer a lot of value but they also destroy a lot of value. I’m not sure which direction it all balances out to in the end…
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Cheers Todd! I know what you mean about Amazon. I’m hoping they will listen to the customers and bring out a better version. We can hope, can’t we?!
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Ugh. Progress. As a 56-year old I seem to be seeing it all the time now. Its getting quite depressing.
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BREAKING NEWS!!! Amazon seem to be working on the problem! A guided view function has been added! It’s not as good as the old version, and the ‘page scroll’ at the bottom is missing, but still … š
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Cool! I will have a look when I get back from work. š
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