iPad comic reader comparison

Most of us know that iPad is an excellent comic reader. Instead of keeping tons of comic books, the idea of carrying our whole comic collection everywhere has bring many people a new lifestyle. And so the next question would be, which app should we use to read our comic?

Comic Reader Mobi was the first comic reader app that I use. Really the best app that does what a comic reader should do. Too bad this app was removed from Apple Store because it uses private API to provide users with easy way to transfer comic files. Even though the creator already apologized to Apple many times for his mistake and asked for a second chance, Apple still does not allow this fantastic app to return.

Last version : 2.2.1
Creator : Ty Landerscaper
App device : universal
Resize large image : no
Comic stored as : original package
Change page : swipe
Stability : very good, almost never crash
Loading time : fast
Supported comic : zip, rar, cbz, cbr, pdf
Cover image : no
Connectivity : iTunes file transfer, FTP (a bit unstable), external application for Windows and OSX
Remember last read page : yes
Jump to page : yes, through list
Other feature : smart zoom, one finger touch on a text and it will zoom the text only (auto detect text area)

Comic Zeal was the primary competitor for Comic Reader Mobi. Somehow it gained more popularity after CRM was banned because many users felt they don’t have other choice. Different from CRM, Comic Zeal pre-processes all comic files before adds them to our device. PDF comics are converted to image files. High resolution images are downsized. Since I’d like to have my high quality images stored in my reader, this app is a big no.

Reviewed version : 4.0.23
Creator : Emiliano Molina
App device : universal
Resize large image : yes, it will downsize anything larger than iPad screen
Comic stored as : individual images (resulting in extremely slow iPad backup in iTunes)
Change page : swipe, touch
Stability : good, rarely crash because all images already downsized anyway
Loading time : reasonable
Supported comic : zip, rar, cbz, cbr, pdf (pre-processed during import)
Cover image : yes, detected through specific file name
Connectivity : iTunes file transfer, external application
Remember last read page : yes
Jump to page : yes

Comic Viewer is a comic reader which display our comic covers like in a bookshelf. Something like Apple’s iBooks. It opens a zip file into images, and sorts them according the file name, regardless the folders that contain those images. As a result of this, I had to open many of my comic collection (zip files with subfolders in them), rename the files and re-zip them before exporting to iPad. When I thought everything was worth the trouble, this app started to show strange behavior after having about 180 comics inside. Loading time becomes insanely slow, and it crashes more and more often during startup.

Reviewed version : 2.0
Creator : DenVog
App device : iPad only
Resize large image : yes, it will downsize anything larger than 1500 pixels
Comic stored as : individual images (resulting in extremely slow iPad backup in iTunes)
Change page : swipe, touch
Stability : poor, crash a lot, and took forever to load a new comic
Loading time : slow
Supported comic : zip, rar, cbz, cbr
Cover image : yes, the first image with name “cover” or something with it will be treated as cover image
Connectivity : iTunes file transfer
Remember last read page : yes
Jump to page : yes, slider
Other feature : instead of folder concept, it can “group” several comics into something they call “stack”

iComic is the cheapest comic reader compared to the other three. This app easily slipped off my radar for several months because the author doesn’t put good app explanation on the iTunes store. He’s Japanese, so it’s probably language problem. This is a stable and smooth comic viewer that does what are needed, without the unnecessary extras. If I had found this app earlier, I probably wouldn’t even try Comic Zeal or Comic Viewer (I would still use CRM though, as iComic doesn’t support PDF and rar).

Reviewed version : 3.3.2
Creator : Y.Yamamoto
App device : universal
Resize large image : no
Comic stored as : original package
Change page : swipe, touch
Stability : stable with smooth page transition
Loading time : fast
Supported comic : zip, cbz
Cover image : no
Connectivity : FTP (stable)
Remember last read page : yes
Jump to page : yes, slider
Other note : the comic images are sorted with case sensitive, sometimes resulting in “omake” pages in manga displayed in the first sequence; password protection available

Conclusion

Even though Comic Reader Mobi still appear to be the overall winner for me, the fact that this app is no longer in the AppStore is kind of uncomfortable. There are few bugs and minor glitch in the application that requires an update, but buyers can’t get the update for at least 1 year until the Apple ban is over. Unless if I jailbreak my iPad of course, which I choose not to do so.

Comic Zeal and Comic Viewer are out of my list mainly because they “open” the archive and store the comic as individual images. This results in VERY LONG backup time when I plug my iPad to iTunes for daily sync. For comparison, full sync of 20GB comic can take up to 10 hours using this individual images approach, compared to storing the comic as zip files would only take less than 1 our for the same set of comic. See my point here?

iComic becomes my primary comic reader now because of its stability and the fact that it’s STILL available in the AppStore, means I can expect updates and bug fixes in the future. I still use Comic Reader Mobi for my RAR and PDF comic because iComic can not read those formats yet. Hopefully in the future update it will be added.

Yes I understand there are still other great comic reader apps available in the AppStore, perhaps even more in the future. While this review can not be a complete review that covers all available readers, it serve the purpose of finding a reasonable and workable reader, from the point of view of ordinary user and comic lover. Hope you find this useful.

Update: I now use three apps as my active comic reader: iComic, ComicGlass and Bookman. Bookman is for my American comics; ComicGlass is for my manga collection which I already have the complete volumes; iComic is for ongoing manga. I will probably write a new review post in the future when I feel like it.