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In advance of DC’s move to simultaneous digital and print release, comiXology has released version 3.0 of its software, which it says is a major improvement in many areas.
New features and benefits of 3.0 include:

Completely redesigned application
Near instant launching
Separate “Purchases” area that displays all owned comics
New series groupings in store and “My Comics”
Discover comics at much faster speeds
Pause and prioritize downloads
Background downloading
Improved “Instant Search”
Buy or continue reading the next issue at the end of a comic

This is a fairly big deal for the popular app — when we get back in AT&T service range, we might even give it a try.

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1 COMMENT

  2. i’ve been dying for an answer to this question:

    if i use comixology to buy (let’s say hypothetically) 20 comics a month…are these stored in the “cloud”? or are these stored on my ipad (thus using up a limited amount of space?).

    i don’t want to regularly buy digital comics if i wake up one day and i don’t have the digital room to store them.plus: is there any guarantee that the purchased books will be accessible ten years from now? it’s not like you can download them to your own hard drive, right?

  3. @thequestion:

    From my experience with Comixology’s app, you can download whichever of your purchased comics you want, or archive them in “the cloud” if you find you don’t currently have space for all of them on your iPad. You just download them again when you want to read them.

    Looking at the app, it seems like the average issue is around 15mb. So even buying 20 comics a month, it would take you over 4 years to fill up even the basic 16gb iPad.

  4. Based on my fiddling with it for a while last night, it is a definite improvement, but Comixology really needs to figure out a way to offer major updates to their software without requiring you to re-download ALL your comics again.

  5. The new app voided my existing “onboard” purchase and noted with a mere bookmark that I bought them. I have to re-download all my books locally into the new app space, which is taking forever. Perhaps when my purchases are local again, I’ll feel better about this new version.

  6. I agree that the interface is MUCH snappier. Still crashes quite a bit on my iPod, though.

    As for taking four years to fill up your iPad, that’s assuming that ComicsX is all you’re using your iPad for. Other apps, videos, music… It sucks up the space pretty quickly.

  7. Your purchases never “go away” even if they are not immediately available on your device.

    You are supposed to own more than you store locally. So let us say that I have my storage set to 2G. Once my comics exceed 2G, Comixology allows me to move older comics out of the active folder and back into the cloud.

    The only concern is to make sure that you have the comics that you wish to read available before you do things like go into the subway, board a plane, sit through a hurricane, etc.

  8. Brian Hibbs splashes cold water on the face of this story in his most recent column.
    The Direct Market is already dead, it just hasn’t started to rot yet. DC knows this, that’s why they’re sending in buzzards to pick the bones of retailers pull lists.
    I can’t imagine how Hibbs must feel to see the hateful ignorance on display in the comments thread of his column.

  9. Here’s a problem I see with comixology or any of the other digital comics sites that insist the comics stay on their app: what happens if/when they go out of business? You’ve mace purchases that certainly will disappear because the files are not on your personal hard drive.

  11. So you now actually own the comic like you do an MP3 and can store it on a hard drive etc? If so it sounds like the only issue I might have with moving to digital is the app used to let you view the file. Can anyone explain to me how that works in the sense of the file can be viewed by different apps or is there one gold standard etc.

  12. Jason: I really don’t know how it works exactly. The best I can come up with is…both.

    Remember: the comixology web app is just that–a web access application. The real bulk of the functional “owning” of property is through mobile devices.

    When I download a comic on comixology, it takes up actual memory on my iPhone. However the only way that I can access the file to open it, read it, is through the comixology reader, a part of the same app. It would be sort of as if the iTunes store app and the iPod app in my iPhone were the same app. The comic files are on my phone, taking up space. That means that I can read comics when I’m offline (for instance, in the NYC subway or in the middle of a concrete building).

    Unfortunately, for the desktop web app, the comics are still only readable in the store/reader app–which is online and therefore, when you’re at a desktop computer, you cannot read comixology purchases off-line.

    Perhaps comixology will build a dedicated comics reader program for offline desktop reading. That would be astounding. But for now, the only way to read the comics while not connected is on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android…you know, mobile computing.

  13. Thanks for the information Darryl. Sounds like I might wait a bit longer until a standard file format that isn’t married to one person’s app is available.

  14. Although Comixology is an independent website, it is directly accessible through DCCOMICS.com and I imagine the other major comic websites as well. As a result, they do have a stake in Comixology not only staying in business, but also have a shared obligation, I would hope, in making sure we get copies of our digital books if they ever were to fail. I have yet to see a disclaimer advising me that I am leaving DCComics.com when I click on the “Read Comics” link?!?!? So far I am keeping copies of all my receipts ;-)