Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited on iOS! Annual sub for $5/month

Quote from GoldenTiger : Oh, I don't know, maybe the part where you left out most of the story to make your point sound stronger, and the shortsightedness of it?

I was explaining to "Waa! Why not Android first!?" that in present day, a company has more incentive to make and sell an Apple app than an Android app and that companies care more about money than consumer interest. Me not pointing out irrelevant facts isn't selective reading or bias.

Quote from butaneko : Dunno sorry. Looks like the code has been around for a while though.

Just got a "code is expired" message...

Quote from buzz86us : you'd think as a business move they'd want to get it to the most people first... Android = 81% IOS=19%

Where's the percentage of how much money iOS users spend on apps compared to Android. My guess its heavily lopsided the other direction. Businesses exist to make money. /thread

Quote from dxhdeals : Where's the percentage of how much money iOS users spend on apps compared to Android. My guess its heavily lopsided the other direction. Businesses exist to make money. /thread

I would guess Marvel has access to their own sales information showing sales on Android vs Marvel since I believe both the Comixology and Marvel app are on both platforms.

Quote from buzz86us : you'd think as a business move they'd want to get it to the most people first... Android = 81% IOS=19%

Too bad that 81% is used to and thinks they're entitle to free stuff....

There's your answer right there.

does anyone know if there huge gaps missing in some of the books? I don't see the point in reading back issues if the whole run isn't there.

I have had this service on the pc for about 1 and a half and while it used to work great not so much now. The service used to have a dedicated area for digital comics unlimited where you could see what issues they had and that sort of thing. However they decided that was too easy to find issues you didnt have to pay for and now there intermixed. They do have a checkbox for Digital comics unlimited however that didnt seem to work when I used it. Also as others have stated they dont have every older issue in a series such as Thor. So some issues are missing. They do updates on the site for comics. The issue I have besides the missing comics is that the site is hard to navigate now. Also the other issue that I did have was finding issues for a particle character did not work last time I tried it. I used to enjoy it however the new update has left me cold doubt ill resub with all the problems with the intermixed comics. I used to enjoy the site for ease of use and now thats out the window.

Quote from kevgret : does anyone know if there huge gaps missing in some of the books? I don't see the point in reading back issues if the whole run isn't there.

From what I can find it is hit or miss. At the same time someone pointed out to me on one of the forums that even if you have to buy some of the missing issues it is cheaper than buying the full run. At $5 a month you are at break even just by reading 2-3 issues since they go for $2.99-$3.99 an issue now. Of course with .99 sales make it 5 issues or an issue or two a week and you have covered your cost.

I am also interested in findng out how bad the gaps are. It's been a quite a while since I stopped buying comics and have a lot of catching up to do so I don't mind the available selection being a bit older.

On a side note, seriously, I do not get why people turn a post on a deal into an iOS vs Android discussion. I am assuming neither Apple nor Samsung/Google is paying them anything so I don't see a need to defend/attack any of these companies for free. I always buy whatever I think gives me the best return on my investment. I have owned all iPhones since the first model till the 4S, but gave the iPhone 5 a miss. The reason was simple: I wanted a couple of things that Apple wasn't offering and so decided to give Samsung/Android a try.

I bought an unlocked/contract-free Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for USD550 (a Black Friday slickdeal) and a 64gb SD card for USD40. The way I see it, I got a 5.5" screen, 80GB of memory and a stable OS that allows a lot of customization and has most of the apps I use for much less than an unlocked iPhone 5 would have cost me ($849+tax). I am not saying the larger screen is perfect for everyone, but it is perfect for me. If the iPhone 6 proves to be awesome, I will switch back to Apple without any regrets. I am sticking to buying music from Amazon (Cloud Player) though to make the back and forth switching process easier.

Both operating systems are at a level where we should not experience any major problems whatever our choice is and that is the important thing: CHOICE. I believe Apple will have to start offering different form factors to remain competitive in this market. Sticking to a single screen size on their latest offerings is a huge mistake. One size fits all worked when competition was below par, but this is no longer the case. There is a reason why they have to offer notebooks with different screen sizes and the same rational now applies to our phones.

My apologies for the long post, but I wanted to add my 2c.

Thanks everyone for the great community we have here. (English is not my first language so please ignore any errors above).

Quote from rsmoker : "On an average day in November, the sales in the App Store surpassed $15 million, according to the report, while those for Google Play were just under $3.5 million across the 20 countries measured." But again, I'm no expert.

Quote from GoldenTiger : Might wantto read what you link , champ. The wired article says the gap is rapidly cclosing and thinks android will soon surpass iOS in revenue, as it is growing quickly and ios is slowing.

Quote from mr.unnatural : I'm no expert either, but I'm guessing that maybe there are more apps available for Android that are free and Apple tends to charge for everything.

You hit the nail on the head with that one.
"At the time of writing this article, "the website claims that there were just over 430,000 apps in total at the time of this articles creation. Furthermore, over 311,000 of those apps were free. That translates into about 72% of all of Google Play apps being free. On the other hand, 148apps claims that the App Store currently has over 615,000 apps. The average price of an app in the App Store will run you $2.02. Finally, only 287,000 apps (46%) were free." *source* [androidauthority.com]
And let's not forget that a lot of android users just plain skip the market for many of their apps and run APKs directly from the developers or archived installers that got pulled from the market due to carrier demands. Android makes it very easy for people to develop incredibly powerful apps and give them away for free, like my wi-fi router app that runs my whole home/mobile network that pulls 15+GB/month for free, or my TI-82/83/85/86 calculator app - both free, but invaluable. That being said, I have bought a lot of great apps as well. But most of the games I have came from the assorted humble android bundles - which is something that doesn't count towards "android sales" because it's DRM-free and not tracked anywhere even though they're paid for.
If anything, I'd say marvel is aiming more at the iOS market because they know that if an android user wants to read comics, all they have to do is install a cbz reader and hit up usenet for the entire archive of marvel/dc/image/darkhorse/etc for free... It is very rare that I find any apple users that even know such s thing is possible, much less have the knowledge or experience to get it done. OTOH, my friends and I have gigs and gigs of comics that we share. Next up on my rooted nook tablet, go back through all of Lobo, Sin City, and Judge Dredd.

Quote from rsmoker : I'm no expert, but I'm going to guess it has something to do with money... http://www.wired.com/business/201...s-android/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-...till-no-1/ "On an average day in November, the sales in the App Store surpassed $15 million, according to the report, while those for Google Play were just under $3.5 million across the 20 countries measured." But again, I'm no expert.

No, you nailed it... the numbers the Android folks are throwing around are huge because they are counting all of the useless droid phones, tablets, etc... the ones that BigLots and Groupon sell. People buy them and never purchase the first app. The Google Play store is also sort of a joke with the stupid pot farm apps that are always in top ten.

For example this is the only one that I can remember explictly. Xmen et all the Mutant Massacre which was kind of a big deal back in the 80s only had the first issue. Could not finish up the story arc.

Quote from spongebobfl : No, you nailed it... the numbers the Android folks are throwing around are huge because they are counting all of the useless droid phones, tablets, etc... the ones that BigLots and Groupon sell. People buy them and never purchase the first app. The Google Play store is also sort of a joke with the stupid pot farm apps that are always in top ten.

That is true to a point but either way, Samsung surpassed Apple is the largest smartphone maker in the world. Samsung primarily makes premium Android phones that are not POS.

Bottom line, Android has a much bigger marketshare than iOS but iOS owners are willing to shell out more money for a premium app than Android users.

Marvel DID say that the android app was coming in the next few weeks. it seems most companies make the ios apps first and then port that to the android platform.