After a little hiatus, back with the reviews:

• Marvel – The Marvel App for the iPad is a wonderful taste of how good digital comics can be presented. The interface is slick, the payment structure is in place and the storage and actual use of the comic book really takes advantage of the power of the iPad as a comic book shaped device. Everything about this app screams awesome, you zoom along thinking you’ve found the perfect app and then you literally run right off the cliff. The problems? Where is DC’s content? It’s all fine that this is a Marvel app, but the structure of this app should be a standardized reader for all comics. Another problem is that Marvel is currently schizophrenic when it comes to their product path, you get a taste of comics, some are free, some are $1.99 but the principal problem behind all of this is that Marvel behaves as if this platform is just a showcase. I’ve spoken to people and I respect their opinions regarding this app and they agree with me, that Marvel is treating this as a teaser to buy actual comic books. That defeats the nature of the App itself. I don’t want physical comic books, I want virtual comic books! That’s the Achilles heel of this App, you can get started and fall in love with the app, but the love affair is short because Marvel isn’t taking it seriously. Do they print? Do they keep going with their digital flash-based comic site, or do they pursue the iPad market? Kudos for coming to the iPad market with their stellar app, jeers for starving the app and their fans of actual use of the app as a primary interface to Marvel. Currently it’s nice to show off the technology and the apps ‘promise’ but beyond that, it’s barely worth free, because there is no content once you rip past the shiny paper.
• Reader – Google Reader for the iPad isn’t so much an App as it is a website with an icon created from it, which is a feature of the iPhone OS. It gives me access to the Google Reader interface, while it’s an acceptable method for consuming Reader news stories, I would really prefer a true iPad App, possibly one with an offline caching feature so that when my iPad is on-network it can soak up news so that I can look at items when I’m off the network. The bugbear here is that there is an App that does that, NetNewsWire, but I stopped using it because it’s syncing with Google Reader is broken. NNW is also a poor fit because it’s first and foremost an RSS reader with extensions to Google Reader. What I’m truly looking for is a Google Reader App for the iPad with caching. Maybe Google will, maybe they won’t. I would like it, and I would pay for it, but the web app icon is currently minimally sufficient.
• Pages – This is one part of the iWork App Suite available for the iPad, the word processor. I used it while I was on a business trip to put together a document and the performance of the app is very solid. There are some very slight shruggable oddities such as not being able to bring up layout and page adjustment controls when in landscape display mode, but once you work out the kinks and actually learn how the App works, it’s well worth the price on the App Store to buy this particular app. The only glaring failure is the inability to print, but I have faith that either there will be an App that bridges the gap or there will be a printing feature in iPhone OS 4. It’s not enough to be a walk-away problem, and there is enough polish elsewhere in the app to make up for the lack of printing features. One of the big things about the iPad is the strong message it sends, that classic printing is dead. In that light I can get along with the lack of printing and appreciate the future that the iPad represents.
• ComicZeal4 – Quite possibly the best App for my iPad, hands down. This moderately priced app swallows CBR, CBZ, and PDF files for comic books stored digitally in those formats. ComicZeal4 is my go-to-app for how I read comic books on my iPad. The presence or absence of certain titles in this app will have to be left up to your imagination however this app does represent a very dangerous thing for ‘old-school’ comic book companies like Marvel and DC. I’ve stated this before in other blog entries, but if you don’t innovate and cater to your customers they will innovate all by themselves, without you. There is an enormous collection of up-to-press comic books presented in a digital format that is exactly compatible with ComicZeal4 and the iPad that have nothing at all to do with Marvel or DC. Because these companies are asleep at worst or sluggish at best at reaching the iPad market, their customers can get what they want without Marvel or DC’s input, without gracing Marvel or DC with money for their work. It’s a natural result of being absent in a market that is voracious for your products. The longer Marvel and DC stay asleep and continue to not-be-present in this marketplace the more their products will leak out and their profit bases erode. What can Marvel and DC do to combat this? It’s completely obvious – enter the marketplace and bring everything you sell! There is a window of opportunity here for both companies, if they don’t take it they will be losing out on not only a multi-million dollar market but also the inevitable future – paper is dead, devices are next. iPad is just the start. If either Marvel or DC is going to enter the space, come with your A-game, not some lame half-hearted toe-wiggling.