Comparison

iComic vs BookViewer

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

BookViewer

Features
Read full description

BookViewerは、PDFファイルや画像フォルダ(ZIP)を読み込み、Kindleのようにスワイプで読めるリーダーアプリです。 【主な機能】 ■ 本棚(ライブラリ) インポートした本を一覧表示。サムネイルとタイトルで管理できます。 ■ ファイルの追加 「+」ボタンから、PDF・ZIP・画像フォルダを選択して追加。 ■ 読書画面 ・左右スワイプでページめくり(Kindle風) ・画面タップでメニュー表示/非表示(閉じる・シークバー) ・下のスライダーで好きなページへジャンプ ・ページ数・進捗を表示 ■ 読み方の切り替え ・左開き:一般的な本のように左から右へ ・右開き:漫画のように右から左へ(ボタンで切り替え) ■ 画像の拡大 画像の本では、ピンチやダブルタップで拡大・縮小できます。 ■ 続きから読む 最後に開いたページを自動保存。次に開いたときは続きから読めます。 【対応形式】 ・PDF(.pdf) ・ZIP(中身の画像を連番で表示) ・画像フォルダ(画像が入ったフォルダをそのまま選択可能)

Screenshots

iComic1 screens
BookViewer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: BookViewer at Free against iComic's $0.99. On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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

BookViewer is free to download; iComic costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
iComic versus BookViewer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriComicBookViewer
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating3.1 (7 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews66.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings7 — better—
Update frequencyMonthly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.616.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB2 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperY.Yamamotojun murase

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

BookViewer

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

iComic

No in-app purchases

None

BookViewer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iComic free?
iComic costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is BookViewer free?
BookViewer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do iComic or BookViewer have ads?
Neither iComic nor BookViewer shows ads.

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