The iPad is the best thing that ever happened to comic books, especially on the big, beautiful, 9.7-inch Retina iPad screen. Every page comes to life and every panel just pops. Combine that with the convenience of digital delivery, and even the iPad mini has the ability to hold an entire comic book library in your hand. That's almost every adventure of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, of the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men, and of indie titles every bit as good if not anywhere nearly as well known. Comic books on the iPad are every fan's dream, but which are the very best iPad apps for realizing that dream? Follow on to find out, true believer!
Guy English of Debug and Kickingbear and Marc Edwards of Iterate and Bjango join Rene to talk about Facebook Home, the iOS 7 interface, and the sega surrounding Sega 12. Also, random hammers, Skype noises, and our worst audio ever! (Sorry!)
Recently a story on Image Comics claimed Apple's App Store "banned" a comic book, Saga 12, from a comic book app, Comics by comiXology, for content reasons. An uproar followed that story so closely that it actually seemed to overtake it at times. The original story turned out to be incorrect. According to comiXology, they assumed Apple would have a problem with the content and so decided on their own not to release it. They were wrong. Apple was fine with it. They subsequently released it. Though the original story still hasn't been updated to reflect any of that, a new story has been posted on Image Comics addressing the matter. So what does this all tell us?
Marvel has retconned and reissued their big comiXology giveaway, promising the #1 issues of up to 700 digital comics -- for free. To get in on the mighty Marvel giveaway, you need to register between now 11:59pm, April 9. In other words, tomorrow night. According to Marvel:
Marvel Unlimited is a new, native app front end for Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service. It lets you read 70 years and 13,000 issues of back catalog comics -- Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, the Avengers, the X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. -- right on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. That means you don't get the really new stuff -- you need a pay-per-issue app like Comics by comiXology to get almost anything from the last year -- but you do get an incredible amount of the classics.
The last Iron Man 3 trailer looked disturbingly like a Dark Knight Rises rehash and while the new one is slightly more fun, it still doesn't show much of the humor of the first two films. Given how belabored and off-key Dark Knight Rises was, I'm nervous.
Still, it's Old Shell Head looking even more Golden Avenger than usual, with War Machine getting the Iron Patriot paint on, and the often superb Ben Kingsley crammed into the many rings of the Mandarin, so while a lot could go wrong, there's still every chance the mighty Marvel movie machine gets this right. Or right enough that, come repulsor and uni-beam time, I won't care.
Iron Man 3 lands in theaters on April 25 or May 3, depending on where you live. In the meantime, there's tons of great content to load up on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Here are some of my favorites.
Marvel Comics Unlimited is a Netflix-like service that lets you subscribe to and consume huge quantities of catalog titles. Like Netflix, it isn't the new stuff, and the old stuff is rife with content gaps, but unlike Netflix, until now Marvel Comics Unlimited was locked into Adobe's Flash player, and that meant it couldn't work on the iPad. iBooks (pictured above), Kindle, and the ComiXology apps have all been options, though single purchase a la carte ones. That's starting to change, however, with a new, iPad-compatible version of the player now being offered as a beta to subscribers.
Looking for great free reading apps for your iPad? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. Some of the most popular free apps are free reading apps. We're talking ebooks, comic books, web articles, and more. So start reading, and then start downloading!
Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a unique photography app, a solution for reading sheet music on the iPad, an alternative to iBooks, an awesome flying game, a web app alternative for a popular native iPhone application, and a new way to view your Instagram feed.
To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!
Georgia, Seth, and Rene discuss Apple's upcoming iPad 3 event, analyze the invitation, and round up the rumors; also: Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad, Marvel comics for iBooks, and Nexia home automation. This is iPhone & iPad Live!
