Android (Google Play) app - Added a shopping cart function. App redirects to a Paypal payment page when you check out, bypasses Google Play payments.
Kindle (Amazon App Store) app - hasn't been updated, still does in-app purchases. Also has never properly displayed the weekly sales Comixology throws, nor does it display the sale pricing that the Android version or the website displays.
iDevice app - no shopping cart, no redirect to PayPal, no redirect to Safari. Not much more than an over-glorified viewer.
Unsurprisingly, this has drawn a lot of ire from comic book readers that are members of the Cult of Jobs. They took the rating of the Comixology app from nearly five stars down to 1.5 stars shortly after its release. It also had me scratching my head a bit as to why they didn't include a shopping cart with a redirect to Paypal or sideload that to the user's account on Comixology via Safari, but I assumed that is probably because there's something in Apple's App Store agreements about bypassing their storefront for a third-party payment system. It only makes sense that Apple's view on it would be along the lines of "if we can't take the money then nobody is going to take the money!" This could potentially be exacerbated by the fact that the Marvel Comics and DC Comics apps, both of which are powered by Comixology's back-end, still allow for in-app purchases. I definitely expect that to change in the coming weeks.
The actual Android app seems to have been hurt the least in all of this kerfuffle. The impulse-buy functionality of the app is still alive and well, it just jumps over the Google Play wall to have you pay for your purchases via PayPal. No big deal there, considering that's how I already did my purchases through Comixology. For Android users, it's basically "business as usual".
The anomaly here is the Kindle app. Out of the three, the Kindle app has always been the weak sister. It has never shown the weekly sales on its splash page, nor does it show the sale price of books that would be visible on comixology.com if you browse to that specific issue in the Kindle app. One could easily assume that this is because Comixology originally had a non-compete clause in its contract to have the app in Amazon's app store, promising to not undercut Amazon's price on collected trade paperbacks or run sales that beat Amazon's pricing.
The weird thing is, now that Comixology is under Amazon's umbrella, you'd think that they'd have updated that version of the app FIRST, adding in the weekly sales and tying your Comixology account to your Amazon account. Maybe that's in the works for the future. If it is, here's a list of things I'd like to see in an updated Amazon Comixology app:
- Actual access to weekly sales on back-issues and collections
- Full integration of Comixology and Amazon accounts. This includes porting any digital comic books or trades that I may have purchased via Amazon or Comixology into one, unified app
- Amazon Prime perks, possibly with a lending library feature or unlimited access to back catalog issues
All in all, this is definitely a state of flux for Comixology. Amazon has recouped their 30% that was going to Apple and Google, but at what cost? They've certainly shot themselves in the foot with the change to the iOS devices, and their suggestion that those users just create a Safari shortcut to their store is going to fall on deaf ears. If they'd just been up-front about the changes and flat-out stated "hey, we're doing this to cut out the middleman, and we can't redirect you to an alternative way of paying for your comics because Apple won't let us", they might not have drawn so much grief. I know that the $5 credit they gave everyone for the inconvenience isn't going to make up for a lot in the minds of the CoJ users. Android users probably won't really care - for them it'll be business as usual, and I know it has been for me. As for the Kindle users, they can only hope for a better experience in the future.
