The contenders.
Welcome, welcome. Read, enjoy, and please leave comments. Everybody has comments. Comments are like…well, I won’t follow-through with that joke, but I will say everybody has one.
Ok, so a week or two ago, a friend sent out a tweet that said “there’s an XKCD iPhone app!!” I decided this was a must-have-app. I needed to add this app to my collection of almost 140 apps. (Yes, I have a problem. I know this and I’m currently avoiding therapy for it, thank you.)
So, off to the App Store I went and what did I find out? I found out that there are a total of seven, yes SEVEN, XKCD iPhone apps available, and each of them are free. Well, with that many free apps all created for the same purpose, I figured somebody on the interwebz had the geeky forethought put together a big ol’ app shootout to find out which was the best one. I was wrong.
For once, somebody else hadn’t already thought to do this. “Serisouly?” I thought, “nobody has done this yet? For XKCD of all things!??!” I couldn’t believe it. So, I decided to do my own shootout review. It’s my first review, so please be gentle if things aren’t as finely-polished as they could/should be.
In all truthfulness, you would not believe the PITA that this turned out to be. Once I downloaded all the apps, many of them had different app icons and/or names than they showed in the App Store. And since Apple was nice enough to let a few of them be named the same exact damn thing it was a bit tough sorting it all out. And I couldn’t just go into the About page in some of the apps to sleuthly figure out which one was which, because some of them didn’t even bother with such time-wasting flimflam as info about the app. It seems they let just anybody develop for the iPhone….although I basically already knew that. 
(a short tip for anybody who might take on such a task in the future: leave your iPhone plugged into your computer while reviewing, and just check/uncheck apps as you’re reviewing them in iTunes. especially when many of the apps are named the same, etc. word.)
Ok, enough back-story. In case I don’t mention it in each review, most of these apps allow you to view comics in portrait mode AND in landscape mode, unless otherwise noted. Enjoy, and I hope this giant shootout review helps you decide which XKCD iPhone app you like best. If not, then I’m a horrible failure…. 
xkcd by Josh Snyder
This is probably my favorite XKCD webcomic reader app. It’s well done and easy to use. You can search just as if you were in the iPhone’s native Mail app: Just scroll down past what is shown to you in the app’s home screen and you are greeted with a search bar. Nice.
Search the way it shold be done.
Also, if you tap the button at the top left on the list of comics, you can “check for new comics,” “email the developer,” and “write App Store review.” If you chose to send an email to the developer, it stays in-app, meaning it doesn’t kick you out to the Mail app. When you send the email, you are brought back to the comic viewing app. It’s the small things that make a difference. Choosing the “write App Store review” option takes you to the app’s page in the App Store.
Extra options.
While you’re viewing a comic, you can tap on the button on the top right and you’ll get the following options: “view on xkcd.com,” “email link to this comic,” “tweet link to this comic,” and “delete image.” I’m not quite sure what “delete image” will do, as I didn’t care to choose it. You wanna risk losing one of the golden XKCD comics for ever and ever and ever?? …then you test it and let me know what it does. Fine? Great. Let’s move on, shall we? Choosing to view the comic at the XKCD.com website kicks you out of the app and into Safari, and emailing a link is in-app. And, even though tweeting a link kicks you out of the app and into a Twitter app (if you have one on your phone, which you probably do), you have options in the iPhone’s Settings menu.
Ahhhhh, the land of options and opportunity...
In the iPhone’s Settings meun for this app, you can turn Rotation on and off, control zooming, and have a say as to when new images are downloaded. Now back to the Twitter options:
Tweet, tweet.
Go to the Twitter client settings and you can let the webcomic viewer app decide, automagically no less, which Twitter app you want to use…or you can just get used to tweeting from one of the apps listed here and then select it from the menu. Either way, it’s cool that you can “tweet a link” from this app. These folks are aware of social media and how people are using it. Good for them.
View on XKCD.com, email link, tweet link, or delete image.
For some reason, when you’re viewing comics in landscape mode, the “view, email, tweet” popup looks different. Couldn’t tell you why. Does it bother my inner perfectionist? Hell yes, it does! But alas, I’m trying to not let such petty things bother me nowdays….
The view, email, tweet, delete popup menu looks different in landscape.
And, as any good XKCD reader knows, there’s always more fun and humor hidden in the mouseover text. If you want to access the mouseover text, just tap-and-hold on the comic you’re viewing.
Tap-and-hold to get to the mouseover text while reading a comic.
Another nice thing about this webcomic viewer is that it shows you which comics you’ve read and which you haven’t yet. The “>” symbol means you’ve read that comic already, while the arrow that points downwards lets you know that particular comic has not been read yet. Very handy indeed.
Arrows pointing down mean you haven't read that particular comic yet.
I really like this XKCD viewer, but the only thing it is missing is the ability to mark certain comics as favorites. But, I suppose you can always email it to yourself. In some of these apps, you might be able to tap-and-hold to save the comic to your Photo Library, but I don’t believe that is possible here, since the tap-and-hold action is used for displaying the almighty mouseover text.
xkcd by Saran Tunyasuvunakool
I also like this viewer, but there are some things about it that will keep me from using it on a regular basis. My main gripe: the mouseover text displays at bottom of screen only after hitting the “<alt>” button on the bottom left, then you must scroll through to see the complete mosueover text. Not user-friendly at all in my opinion. I know, I know, it’s supposed to be a big funny to all the geeks out there. I get it. It’s funny. It makes me feel like I’m part of a big nerd-love-in. But, when it comes to user interface happiness: It’s still a big downfall.
For the mouseover text, you have to tap a button, then scroll to see the complete text. Not cool.
If you’re a stickler for controlling how many comics are downloaded at once (which really is not a problem, this is not a processor-intensive comic we’re talking about here), you can dig into the settings menu. You can mark all comics as Read or Unread, turn auto-download for new comics on and off, set a maximum number of comics to auto-download, reset network usage (this would be nice if we weren’t all forced to have unlimited data plans), delete all locally stored comics, and even batch download all of the XKCD comics. Not a bad feature set. It’s an ugly menu, but hey, it’s more options than most of the other competition provides.
The settings menu.
You can also search for comics by title or by their numeric ID. Getting to the search function is not as snazzy as it is in the previous app, but it’s only a tap away. No complaints.
The search screen. No explanation needed.
So, this isn’t a bad webcomic viewer either, except that you have to jump through a hoop or two to get to the mouseover text. Not a good implementation in my opinion, as the mouseover text is often an integral part of each comic. What’s that I hear? You say I’m being picky? Possibly so. But that’s part of doing app reviews, so I have my picky-meter turned up to 11.
XKCD Viewer by Stefan Huber
And this brings us to our next XKCD webcomic viewer. For the most part, the two previous apps will do just fine. They are my preferred apps. Now we’re getting into some real annoyances with the following apps. First of all, this particular app has a loading screen at startup. I don’t necessarily mind loading screens, but when other apps do the job quicker, and without a need for a loading screen, I find it annoying.
A loading screen?!?! Really??
And, I have a feeling that the “loading” that is going on has nothing to do with the actual comics, as you’ll see in the next screenshot.
Oh, how I *hate* ads in iPhone apps.
Yup, that’s right. Advertisements in an XKCD app. It just seems wrong. And look, I know people have to make money. In other apps, for instance when there is a free version of a paid app that is ad-supported since it’s free, that’s fine by me. I can handle that. But, this just seems like somebody is trying a little too hard to make a grab for the giant bag of cash at the end of the App Store rainbow. Ya dig? Oh yeah, and the best thing about the ads?? They often block parts of the comic, and you are unable to scroll around or zoom or anything to see the part that is hidden. They aren’t on-screen at all times, but about 50% of the time, they’re all up in your face. Very annoying. FAIL.
“So, how about the mouseovers?” you ask. A single tap on the comic you’re viewing will get you mouseover text love, but I often had to tap at top of screen the first time to get it to work, then a tap anywhere on the screen would work. Once again…FAIL.
Once you get the sinlge-tap action to respond, you get delicious mouseoverness.
The mouseover display isn’t bad at all, I actually like it, although the transparent-ish backdrop could be darker. It’s quite hard to read when most of the comic is white space. Plus, although I have no screenshot of the popup menu, after you tap to get mouseover text, you can tap the button in the top right of the mouseover text screen to get “add to favorites,” “save to photo album,” and “email photo.” Can you dig it? I knew you could.
One of the saving graces of this webcomic reader is the fact that you can mark certain comics as a Favorite. Nice. I really wish the first app I reviewed had this, as it is my favorite so far.
A Favorites list. All of these apps should have this!
So, in closing for this particular app: It’s ok. I mean, it could be better. Actually, if they were to do away with the annoying damn ads, I would be able to forgive it for it’s other failures. A quickly made application with some advertisements thrown in scream, “I don’t care, I just wanna get paaaaaaiiiiiiid!!!” You are the most annoying link…goodbye.
iXKCD by Xuwen Cao
Well now, what do we have here? An app with a little bit of creativity in it’s name…iXKCD. Well ok, not that much creativity but it’s still better than plain-Jane “XKCD” or “XKCD Reader,” especially when there are also 2 or 3 other apps that go by the same exact name–oh nevermind, I’ve gone through that already. So, it has a name that sort of sticks out, that’s good. What else does it have?
Nothing. You get no say as to which comic you’re viewing. It’s all left up to the randomness which can be life. If you like rocking an iPod Shuffle, then this may be an app you can enjoy. Myself: No. I want control. It’s my device, and I want to tell it what to do. I didn’t lay down all those hard-earned greenbacks just so I could be given whatever slop some stinky lucnhlady slaps onto my plate. I want choice.
Is it a coincidence that I chose this particular comic? I think not.
So you might be thinking, “ok, dude, calm down. How does it work?” Well, in order to get a new comic, you must shake the phone, it makes an annoying clicky-type of sound, then you get a hot steaming order of haphazard nerd-comic goodness. “Ok then, does it really do nothing else?” Well, you can rotate and zoom the comics to your heart’s content. And when I say that, I mean it. You can zoom a lot and you can rotate a lot.
Zooma-zoom-zoom.
Zoomoutta-zoomout-zoomout.
Here’s another thing I haven’t mentioned yet: You can click on that nifty “i” in the blue circle Of Awesomeness & Answers and it’ll tell you your fortune. Wait. No. Actually, it shows you the mouseover text. And it’s also out of view a lot of times, since you have so much freedom to zoom around the comic, yet the Info Button is always stuck on the corner of comic itself.
Mouseover text. From back when it looked happy.
11 xkcd Reader by Trevor Mullins
Ok, here’s a quicky.
Oh goodie!! Another loading screen! SWEEEEET!
What you see is what you get. Wow, four comics? Jeez, I just don't know if I can handle such a giant amount of awesomess...
Landscape only. The edges kinda almost get cut off sometimes, too. It makes me sad.
What? I used this screenshot already? That's how boring this app is. Great extras: No search. And other crapiness I don't even feel like getting into.
XKCD Comic Reader by Craig Belpedio
Annnnnnnnnnnnd another quicky.
More loading screen Hell. But, I can see this app possibly adds a boxed-and-cropped-for-no-damn-good-reason function...
Yeah, this rocks. I can't zoom, but I can scroll around the image in an unnecessary box. Fantiastic. How do they comes up with this amazing stuff. (I wish I had a sarcastic font right now.)
The sad boy stares down at the hidng-in-plain-sight mouseover text ..... and the text sits there, feeling alone ... and feeling even more sad than the boy does ...
You can search. Here. In this beautifully designed search area. By the way, all this terribleness is brought to you in a portrait-only form factor.
XKCD Webcomic by Conquer The Day
And, the last but not least – well, it’s the last one.
Has ads. That sucks. No search. No Favorites. No tweeting, no emailing. No sharing. --SLAP!!!-- Get yo' hands off that!!
At least this one has mouseovers. More that it doesn't have: Landscape mode.
So, in conclusion, I think there are only 2 XKCD webcomic reader apps you should really consider. That is, if you’re interested in user-friendly design, a truly thought-out app, options to share by way of email and Twitter, the ability to mark your favorite comics, and generally, an app that doesn’t get in your way when you wanna laugh your ass off. Some of the other apps are nice. Others are not. I hope I saved you some trouble. You can send me money now. Thank you.
