Comixology - Comics & Manga 17+

Great app but should be more customizable

I have enjoyed using the Comixology app for about two years now. Although a lot of reviews appear to be about the Comixology digital comics service itself or the Comixology Unlimited subscription service, which are both great, I think the user experience accessing and interacting with Comixology content through the app could be improved. The core function of simply reading comics is slick. I’ve never had any issues and the “Guided View” option to view each panel sequentially as a separate page really improves the experience for some books.

But the inability to organize your books drives me crazy. You can only view your titles alphabetically or you can view individual books in one of a few “Smart Lists” that the app automatically generates (the same lists are also available in your online account). These show books you’re in the middle of reading, most recent purchases, most recent downloads, and unread books. Those are helpful, but once you build a large digital collection and start to take advantage of sales to purchase books you may not read for a long time, they have very little utility and it becomes very difficult to keep track of th books you want to read. Please, Comixology, add a setting for “Custom Smart Lists.” Even if the user has to login to the main app through a desktop to setup a custom list, it would be a major improvement. That would definitely make this a five star app.

Poorly executed in several ways

There are some really neat features and content in this app. Sadly, many things about this app are poorly designed, poorly engineered, and poorly executed, with the result being a subpar experience for the user. * Attempting to borrow / read new books with Unlimited constantly gets the book stuck in “Borrowing...” state, requiring restarting the app * Confusing UI makes it difficult to navigate in some ways. The guided view can be really nice, but the touch system is sometimes frustrating to use. I hope the devs get rid of the double tap gesture recognizers which would make single taps feel more responsive *The Unlimited service feels like a bait and switch. They make it look like your favorite content is available to read, but only the first few episodes are. After that the unlimited service is not really providing anything and you’re expected to buy each individual book, BUT.... *there is no way to actually BUY books to read. You must buy them from the website etc

A lot of potential here and I really hope they continue to work and improve things in the app

Developer Response ,

Thanks for the honest feedback. :-( We'll be sharing with our team for sure.

New Update removed useful features

The removal of the smart list is a big drawback for me. I have become an infrequent reader the last few years and the organization of such rows as “current reading” and “recently purchased” helped to remind me of things to pick back up after long periods of time away. I will occasionally buy something to read later and grouping by recently purchased as opposed to the release date helps for finding older comics I currently bought to read easier . The fact that these synced to the cloud was very convenient when switching devices, as it helped to maintain reading list continuity. The “Library” ( which seem to be what was previously “My Library” ) is not of much use to me, as I have a accumulated a large collection over many years and having everything in one place, for me, can make finding something I was reading but cannot remember the tile of difficult. Making that and “Explore” the only options seems like a huge drawback to me from the previous version. While I still go to my local comic shop monthly to check my pull box for a few series, I mostly read digital for it’s convenience. I hope that at least some of the innovative features like the smart list and others removed can find there way back into was a great comic reader.