Fans have been upset about ComiXology for months now. The app, which has a virtual monopoly on American digital comics, was purchased by Amazon in 2014, and operated as a separate entity for most of the last decade. Earlier this year, though, the ComiXology website was shut down, with users directed to an Amazon-branded front page, and the functionality of the website and app was significantly diminished as Amazon moved to eliminate the unique ComiXology app and replace it with a Kindle-style interface. Comics-specific features like guided view were lost or rendered virtually unusable, which was particularly painful since ComiXology had pioneered many of the changes that are now standard when it comes to interacting with comics on a digital screen.
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The outcry was immediate and deafening, and in March, Amazon responded by rolling out the first in what they promised would be a series of app updates to confront the waves of anger from users and comics creators. Of course, in terms of being user-friendly, it didn’t help them that in May, they removed the ability for Android users to buy comics in the app itself.
Last night, ComiXology announced a new round of updates, while also admitting that some of the functionality users used to have — like Guided View on the web — remains elusive for some reason.
“We’ve been combing through your feedback, and continue to be grateful for all the comics lovers out there. We understand that the current experience needs improvements, and want you to know that we’re working hard to get those out the door as quickly as possible,” began ComiXology’s statement. “It’s been a while since our last update, and we wanted to share some updates on what our team has been working on these past few months and announce some new features that are coming soon. In the coming weeks, we’re launching a beta version of the web reading experience that will include double-page spread, new zoom in/out functionality and vertical scroll while reading. It won’t support Guided View yet, but we are working on that next. We’re also excited to announce that 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. We’ll let you know when this launches. Also, we’re aware of issues customers are facing when searching for comics and getting non-comics/graphic novel/manga results. While we work to correct this, make sure to start your search from http://amazon.com/comixology or http://amazon.co.uk/comixology. For New Releases – we’ve fixed an issue 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. We’ve also added 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 our selection of discounted titles. And for those in the UK, customers can now quickly make a purchase and/or borrow a book within the New Releases and Homepage without tapping into the book detail page. Simply tap on a book, and a pop-up window will appear to help you quickly get the book. While far from a complete list, these are just a few things we’ve been working on. We know there’s a lot more that needs to be done to improve the Comixology experience, and we have many more initiatives we’ll share soon. Stay tuned for more updates on Twitter and Instagram. See you at San Diego Comic Con!”
“We know being able to read your comics on our web reader is important. We’re working as fast as possible to roll out improvements,” ComiXology said back in March. “This is not a complete list of every improvement that our team is hard at work on. Thank you for your patience and more updates to come.”
