Comparison

iComic vs Special Symbols

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iComic

Read high-resolution comic pages from zip or cbz archives on your device. Enjoy seamless navigation and zooming with multi-touch gestures. Download comics from the internet or personal servers for offline reading.

Highlights
  • High-resolution comic page display
  • Supports JPG, TIF, PNG in ZIP/CBZ
  • Multi-touch page navigation
  • Pinch-to-zoom functionality
  • Built-in download manager
  • Offline comic access
Features
Read full description

Welcome to iComic, the premier application for reading comics on your iPhone or iPod Touch. iComic makes great use of the multi-touch function for simple and effective page navigation and zooming to provide the best portable comic book read you will find. iComic displays high resolution comic pages (jpg, tif, or png image files) contained inside compressed zip or cbz format archives. Using the built-in download function, comics can be downloaded from the internet or from a personal server and stored locally on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Your downloaded comics are stored on your device and so are always available for reading, even when you have no internet connection. As iTunes resizes images to a compressed format, iComic is also useful for displaying images for other uses e.g. maps, high detailed photos and ebooks (convert your pdf books to jpeg and you have a perfect reader for those large pdf files, normally unreadable due to the high memory requirement). iComic currently provides three methods for turning pages: swiping your finger on the screen; by taps in the screen corners using the Corner-Tap method; or by Multi-Touch (tap once to page forward, twice to page back). Zooming is by the familiar pinch method used in Safari and other applications or by double tapping the screen when in Corner-Tap mode. The application is very stable and can easily handle zip files up to 60MB with infrequent problems observed with files of much larger size. Individual image files inside the zip files are constrained to a maximum 3 million pixels (e.g. 3,000 pixels high x 1,000 pixels wide or equivalent) though for the sake of battery conservation much smaller sizes (~1000 pixels high) are generally used. A manual for setting up and using iComic can be downloaded from http://red.halfmoon.jp/AppStore_iComic_V1.3_FAQ.pdf The author of this application is Japanese so for excellent community support and discussion in English please visit the helpful and friendly ~*~ Ultimate icomic Thread ~*~ at www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23759

About

Special Symbols

Enhance your messages, emails, and social media posts with a creative touch. This app provides 21 distinct keyboards to easily insert unique characters and styles directly from your system keyboard.

Highlights
  • 21 unique keyboards
  • Add special characters
  • Creative text styles
  • Bold and italic text
  • Monospace and gothic fonts
  • Full width text
Read full description

Special Symbols is a powerful set of keyboards that will help you to add a special touch of creativity to your messages, email and social apps! Just add 1 keyboard to your system going to Settings > General > Keyboards and you'll have 21 keyboards available in your system! • pǝʇɐʇoɹ • ⓒⓘⓡⓒⓛⓔⓓ • squared • ¢σσɭ ɭєʈʈєяȿ • åĉĉéńẗŝ ĂČČĔŃŤŚ • bold • italic • monospace • double text • gothic •full width / FULL WIDTH Help us to improve and continue the development rating this app 5 stars! Thank you!

Screenshots

iComic1 screens
Special Symbols3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Special Symbols at free against iComic's paid. Special Symbols also leads on rating (3.5 vs 3.1) and iOS requirement (14.7 vs 16.6). iComic's advantage is review sentiment (66% vs 52%) and update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

iComic costs $0.99 and Special Symbols $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Special Symbols holds the better App Store score, 3.5 against 3.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 7 and 8 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 66% of iComic's written reviews are positive against 52% of Special Symbols's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iComic ships an update monthly, Special Symbols every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
iComic versus Special Symbols: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriComicSpecial Symbols
Price$0.99$0.99
Rating3.1 (7 ratings)3.5 (8 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.2% of reviews — better51.9% of reviews
Number of ratings78 — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.614.7 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB1 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperY.YamamotoMarco Petrucci

Customer experience

iComic

All ratings7 ratings
Positive57.1%
Neutral0.0%
Negative42.9%
Written reviews207 reviews
Positive66.2%
Neutral12.6%
Negative21.3%

Special Symbols

All ratings8 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral25.0%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews52 reviews
Positive51.9%
Neutral19.2%
Negative28.8%

Bugs and requests

iComic

Reported bugs

17 issues
  • App crashes when opening large comic files
  • Rotation mode becomes stuck after using 'fix right' option
  • Status bar doesn't disappear despite settings
  • Bookmark settings not saved in iOS 4.x
  • FTP upload fails with permission errors
Show 12 more
  • File numbering displays out of order (01 after 1)
  • Nested folder structures not readable
  • Landscape mode rendering issues with black space
  • Memory leaks causing frequent warnings
  • CBR files with newer RAR compression show blank pages
  • Swipe navigation not working properly
  • App crashes after finishing a comic
  • Cannot save rotation preferences
  • Crashes on iOS 5+ with certain devices
  • FTP connection issues on Windows 7
  • Blank 'read error' pages in some CBR files
  • App installs multiple times causing file confusion

Requested features

18 requests
  • CBR/RAR format support (added in later versions)
  • iTunes file transfer integration
  • Lock rotation option for reading
  • Auto-rotate to landscape for 2-page spreads
  • Improved file management and deletion from app
Show 13 more
  • Better bookmark functionality with persistent storage
  • Thumbnail previews of comics
  • Directory/folder organization system
  • Password protection for app
  • Batch file import capability
  • Page slider for quick navigation
  • Support for PDF files
  • Retina-friendly app icon
  • Improved file sorting (alphanumeric)
  • In-app FTP file pulling from servers
  • Gesture controls for chapter navigation
  • Reset read status for re-reading
  • Automatic chapter continuation

Special Symbols

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

iComic

No in-app purchases

None

Special Symbols

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iComic free?
iComic costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Special Symbols free?
Special Symbols costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iComic or Special Symbols?
Special Symbols is rated higher. iComic averages 3.1 out of 5 from 7 ratings, while Special Symbols averages 3.5 from 8 ratings.
Do iComic or Special Symbols have ads?
Neither iComic nor Special Symbols shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iComic or Special Symbols?
iComic ships an update monthly, and Special Symbols every 2 months. Most recently, iComic was updated on October 29, 2026 and Special Symbols on October 24, 2026.

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