They have a hundred miles of improvements they need to do, just to get back to where they were before the update.

 

Especially since this new update screwed people like me. I like to keep a lot of books handy for travel, but auto downloading HD comics screws my device storage.

The old app had a toggle so you could choose low res for books. Since I was using guided view low res was great. Now I can barely store a few omnibus titles.

Hard to imagine this app could screw me over further, but here we are.

 

"We’re still making a few improvements to our already-live US/UK comics storefronts, and plan to roll out storefronts to additional countries this year."

This line got to me. They're not improvements, they're fixes. If I break something and it takes me six months to get it working more or less as well as it used to, nobody is going to call it an improvement.

 

Well, I just discovered something interesting.

I got an email from Amazon about updating my comic via Amazon’s settings “Manage Your Content and Devices,” because they weren’t able to update the comic on the Comixology app.

I should note that the only change made for Transformers: Beast Wars (2021 - ) #14 was that they fixed the guidance view, but be aware that this is possible.

 

Things are so significantly broken that improvement shouldn’t be in the vocabulary for a long time to come.

 

So I’ve had the Comixology Unlimited subscription for years, but now with the clusterfuck that is the current Comixology, I think I’m ready to finally say goodbye. Anyone here have Marvel Unlimited? I know it’s a few bucks more that Comixology’s service, but I’m curious how big the catalogue is and how well their comic-reader works.

 

I need to cancel my subscription plan too. I wish a new competing app/service would show up. I’ve never been so ticked off by some non-vital commercial product.

This change was so monumentally stupid. Holy cow, it’s like you literally wanted to self-destruct.

 

Yeah, that’s how I feel. There’s clearly far worse things going on, but it’s the fact that they needlessly took a service that worked perfectly well — no, scratch that — it was actually great for what it was, but then they just totally fucked it, like no one would mind.

And what really gets me, is Amazon bought Comixology quite a while ago, and pretty much left it alone that whole time. It’s like all of a sudden they decided, hey, fuck this shit, right?

 

Got this in my email this morning

Even if I'm not using it much due to the changes on topic, still a further bummer since being able to buy titles while mobile directly from the app has been a welcomed convenance in the past.

 

COMIXOLOGY tweets about improvements to controversial service rollout

Comixology has written a list of tweets explaining their upcoming plans for the service. I personally think they've got a long way to go before it returns to the positive reception it once had, but it seems to be a step in the right direction:

“1./ 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.
“2./ 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.
“3./ 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.
“4./ 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.
“5./ 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 Kindle Comics or Kindle Comics.
“6./ 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.
“7./ 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.
“8./ 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.
“9./ 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.
“10./ 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.
“11./ Stay tuned for more updates on Twitter and Instagram. See you at San Diego Comic Con!”

 

At this point concrete actions are better than words.

 

No kidding, I tried the webpage version recently to get some close-up screenshots to share with a friend, it just sucks so much now. So much functionality lost.

 

There's nothing they can do to fix this short of making a separate storefront again. And considering that integrating comics into the main Amazon storefront was the whole point of all this, Comixology is dead and never coming back. Yo-ho

 

Amazon has to see their sales have DROPPED because of the change. The question will be how long will they drag their feet to get back to the old way because they can keep shining this turd all they want but it’s not going to change customer behavior.

We want the old system. This new system caters to Amazon’s naive belief that controlling the storefront and manipulating it will impact customer’s buying habits. But it will not.

This has been such a catastrophe and a huge slap to Amazon’s hubris. So idiotically foolish and nothing to show for it except royally ticked off customers.

 

Amazon promises to fix Comixology after making the service nearly unusable | Engadget

 

Comixology and digital sales were legitimately the future of the industry. This whole thing has been a major set back. It’s going to be a long time to rebuild any kind of faith in all this.

 

I wanted to read a few issues that just came out. I got an email about they were no longer gonna be able to be paid on the app. So, I just went to the comic shop by me and got the few I wanted. If anything I used to get digital cause it was cheaper. It's the same now even with tax so I may as well go to the store by my house/job and support local owners. So, nicely done supporting small business amazon...

 

Major Layoffs Reported At Amazon And ComiXology

Not sure what this means, but I can’t see that it’s good. This was literally the future of comics, enabling them to get to greater audiences and promote small books. And now…

 

I hope those who lost their job find another one soon...

I've now pretty much dropped almost all of the comics I was buying from DC Comics and Marvel Comics in favour of their own services. It was more due to the cost factor, rather than the direction of Comixology.

It would be a shame to lose Comixology. While it's lost a lot of it's identity and uses due to it being a reskin of Kindle, it still has its place in the digital comic world.