Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review
Video and screengrabs in this post: a first hands-on experience of the free Marvel Comics app for iPad, produced with Comixology (who produced a popular iPhone app). Word is that more than 500 titles will be available through the application at time of launch on Saturday.
Context & Ripple Effects
Marvel and Comixology had already established a mobile distribution channel through the Marvel Comics iPhone app. The iPad version carries that model onto a larger-screen device as Apple's iPad App Store opens ahead of the hardware launch.
The reported launch catalog of more than 500 titles matters because it makes the app a storefront rather than a token-format experiment. It also gives Comixology a role in adapting a publisher's back catalog to Apple's new tablet marketplace.
First-order effects
- Marvel Comics gains an iPad sales and reading channel for a catalog of more than 500 titles, while Comixology supplies the application layer behind it.
- iPad buyers can obtain Marvel titles through an app tied to the newly live App Store rather than through a separate comics-specific marketplace.
Second-order effects
- Comixology's earlier iPhone relationship with Marvel becomes a foothold in the iPad launch catalog, raising the value of its publisher integration as developers concentrate on Apple's App Store.
- Other comics publishers face a clearer choice between building comparable iPad storefronts and relying on platform partners as Marvel establishes an early tablet presence.
Third-order effects
- If publisher catalogs continue to move into device-specific apps, digital comics distribution will increasingly be shaped by storefront access and app-development partners rather than only by print retail channels.
- Apple's App Store becomes a more consequential gatekeeper for media publishers as the iPad draws developers toward its marketplace and away from rival mobile software stores.
The trend: The iPad is extending app-store distribution from phone utilities into catalog-driven media storefronts built around publisher-platform partnerships.