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2000 AD Android app - now live!

Started by Molch-R, 14 January, 2015, 10:08:35 AM

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Molch-R

It's finally here: the 2000 AD app on Android devices: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rebellion.app2000ad&hl=en_GB

There's some press that's been lined up for this so we're not screaming about it yet to see how it goes down but please do download and, if you like it, give it a good rating!

TordelBack

#1
"Droids finally deliver Android", chilling words torn from tomorrow's headlines!

Installed, everything seems to tick along nicely, sharp and simple. Well done all.  €4.99 for the digital Meg is terrific value, when it's around €8.00 in the shops in Murphyville - I believe I shall be returning to Meg reading on this basis, and start working back through the recent years I've missed. Much as I love a paper copy, I can very rarely justify that kind of money for a single comic (I can get three comics for the kids for that) - at a fiver we're into the realm of many US comics, and you get so much more from the Meg. 

Slightly less positively, €2.99 for the Prog isn't such a good deal over the paper version (certainly not enough of a difference to make me switch to digital - and I really do believe it's important to keep 2000AD visible on physical shelves), and a single month's subscription to the Meg costing €0.49 more than buying a single issue perhaps wrongly suggests that the 'free back issues' with a new sub aren't exactly that.

But these are money matters, and don't reflect on the very positive inclusion of we of the Android persuasion.   Oh, but I would like a landscape option for the shop itself, please!   


Spaceghost

Downloaded last night. It's a lovely, uncluttered, easy to use interface and comics download really quickly.

I can't help but compare it, though, to my other online comics experiences with Comixology and the Dark Horse app, and the 2000 AD app comes off worse I'm afraid in one regard, which is the lack of a 'guided panel view' option.

Because I have a 7 inch tablet, the full screen view is too small to read properly, and zooming in each page and manually moving the screen around is too fiddly. The guided view used by the aforementioned apps is perfect because it jumps to the next panel and magnifies it automatically.

Without that feature, I simply wouldn't pay to read a digital comic. If it did have the guided view, I'd switch to a digital subscription tomorrow.
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

Molch-R

Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 11:27:51 AM
a 'guided panel view' option

As the guided view is proprietary software - and would increase the cost of each issue - it's not something we're planning to offer any time soon, sorry.

Pyroxian

Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 11:27:51 AM
Because I have a 7 inch tablet, the full screen view is too small to read properly, and zooming in each page and manually moving the screen around is too fiddly. The guided view used by the aforementioned apps is perfect because it jumps to the next panel and magnifies it automatically.

You can set the app to single-page view, and read in landscape and just scroll the page up and down (and turn your device to portrait to view full-screen artwork panels)

TordelBack

Quote from: Pyroxian on 14 January, 2015, 11:33:32 AM
Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 11:27:51 AM
Because I have a 7 inch tablet, the full screen view is too small to read properly, and zooming in each page and manually moving the screen around is too fiddly. The guided view used by the aforementioned apps is perfect because it jumps to the next panel and magnifies it automatically.

You can set the app to single-page view, and read in landscape and just scroll the page up and down (and turn your device to portrait to view full-screen artwork panels)

S'right.  I'm a tablet-readin' noob, so I've no experience of guided view (which may well be the dog's proverbials), but the no-frills interface works find for me.  I have a 7" too (although the wife does say it seems bigger), and the double-tap zoom clears up any detail issues for me.  Rapidly panning about does seem slightly less smooth than on other free comic reader apps I've used, but that might be due to larger pages and higher resolution copy.

Fungus

Good to see, works nicely.
Holding off the digital tide personally for now, barracading myself in a fortress of Showaddywaddy vinyl... I suppose a reasonable digital discount on the prog would be one factor in dropping paper. Picking up the prog each Wed in WH Smith and browsing the tat' mags (not really) will do for now. The future can just wait.

Spaceghost

Quote from: Molch-R on 14 January, 2015, 11:30:12 AM
Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 11:27:51 AM
a 'guided panel view' option

As the guided view is proprietary software - and would increase the cost of each issue - it's not something we're planning to offer any time soon, sorry.

Ah, right. I assumed it was something that could be developed 'in house' as Comixology and Dark Horse both use different technology.

Not to worry. When it comes to 2000 AD I think I'd rather have physical copies anyway (certainly of the graphic novels).
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

Molch-R

Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 12:26:04 PM
Ah, right. I assumed it was something that could be developed 'in house'

It probably could be, but it would take very significant resources to do it.

Molch-R

Quote from: TordelBack on 14 January, 2015, 11:06:48 AM
a single month's subscription to the Meg costing €0.49 more than buying a single issue

Hmmm, we've had a look into that and it is, indeed, an error. The individual issue price will be reset as soon as the techs can get to it. Thanks for pointing it out!

James Stacey

I find my eyes do a 'guided view' automatically if the artist knows what he is doing :)

Spaceghost

Quote from: James Stacey on 14 January, 2015, 01:58:51 PM
I find my eyes do a 'guided view' automatically if the artist knows what he is doing :)

Yeah, it's not the 'guided' bit I like, it's the auto-zooming in on individual panels to save me straing my poor old eyes.

I did give it another go at lunchtime and found it easier to read this time. The trick is to pinch-zoom in and then move around the page. Just takes some geting used to.
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

pauljholden

Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 12:26:04 PM
Quote from: Molch-R on 14 January, 2015, 11:30:12 AM
Quote from: Spaceghost on 14 January, 2015, 11:27:51 AM
a 'guided panel view' option

As the guided view is proprietary software - and would increase the cost of each issue - it's not something we're planning to offer any time soon, sorry.

Ah, right. I assumed it was something that could be developed 'in house' as Comixology and Dark Horse both use different technology.

Not to worry. When it comes to 2000 AD I think I'd rather have physical copies anyway (certainly of the graphic novels).

I'm going to be boring here for a minute (what's unusual says you...)

Comixology have a patent on their particular technology. I don't think it'd actually be that hard to copy it (it's pretty simple really, you pay someone to draw boxes around the bits you want the software to zoom in on, you get the software to zoom in on them as you read) but it IS patented. I remember seeing similiar tech before comixology, notably there was a 'smart panel zoom' type feature on some software that detected boxes and zoomed to those when you tapped near them - I think that technology would be harder to replicate, but there was no patent on it.

You could also pay someone to just chop up every page into boxes and then switch the reader to display one box at a time (or zoom out) not as graceful, but arguably impossible to patent.

BUT (the autozoom feature aside) they all require significant resources PER issue - it's not a problem that's simply solved because you've cracked the patent/programming (many problems are solved that way, which is why it's worth spending the man hours/money in solving them)

(And, as an addendum, apple accidentally solved this problem with the first versions of iphones and safari, when you could double tap in any significant text box and the browser would zoom into that specific boxed area - a method I first stumbled across years ago when I realised you could do comics on the iphone. But it was a tough beast to tame, and I was busy...)

-pj
(I know lots of people disagree with software patents, I'm one of them, but they exist and are enforceable and are the reason that almost everyone who has a one-click shop has to pay some sort of nominal lip service to amazon who own the patent on one-click operations).

Keef Monkey

#13
Can't tell you how happy I am that this app has appeared - I cancelled my paper sub a while back to go digital and buying each issue individually each week has been really fiddly. So nice to just install the app and take out an annual sub for the prog and meg again! Looking forward to having everything easily accessible on from one place on my tablet, and with a nice clean easy to browse interface.

My one confusion is the 'Restore Purchases' thing - the in-app help says you can tap that to unlock everything you've bought digitally in the past but I can't find that option anywhere. Am I just not looking in the right place? I've got some back issues unlocked but that's the free ones that came with the sub, hoping to unlock everything I've bought through the website in the past.

Cheers, really appreciate the work that's clearly gone into this lovely app!


Pyroxian

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 14 January, 2015, 03:53:56 PM
Can't tell you how happy I am that this app has appeared - I cancelled my paper sub a while back to go digital and buying each issue individually each week has been really fiddly. So nice to just install the app and take out an annual sub for the prog and meg again! Looking forward to having everything easily accessible on from one place on my tablet, and with a nice clean easy to browse interface.

My one confusion is the 'Restore Purchases' thing - the in-app help says you can tap that to unlock everything you've bought digitally in the past but I can't find that option anywhere. Am I just not looking in the right place? I've got some back issues unlocked but that's the free ones that came with the sub, hoping to unlock everything I've bought through the website in the past.

Cheers, really appreciate the work that's clearly gone into this lovely app!

If you've logged in with your 2000ad store account, you should just get access to everything you've bought with that account.