Still a few bugs in the iComics system

I've got an iPhone. And you know, I like the idea of reading comics on it. The serialization of Jeff Smith's Bone (six issues so far) ported over to the iPhone has me buying this story for the fourth time just to have it in the cool portable format.

But there's clearly a lot of progress that needs to be made before this medium makes any challenges at all to print. Witness the Star Trek Archives: Best of Peter David comic by iVerse Media, being sold on the iTunes Store. It presents, in iPhone format, one of those clever and pretty fun PAD DC Trek issues set between the movies.



Why, the whole thing's only 99¢. That's a lot of fun for less'n a buck. Sign me up for that...it oughta be the perfect way to view the adventures of Middle-Aged Kirk, Freshly-Resurrected Spock, Still-Crusty McCoy, and "the rest."



Except it isn't. Because the program crashes on screen 102.



Not that has stopped iVerse Media from selling the program. No, it's still available with a caveat emptor: "But it, but it doesn't work. We sent the fix into Apple, it's not our fault they haven't posted it yet!"

To be fair, iPhone apps receive free upgrades when a new version comes out. But heck guys, how hard is it to test-drive your own product—and how un-stringent (astringent?) must the iStore testing procedures for vetting a program be? Why, I bet Reed Richards could make an iPhone comic work first time out! He's one of the most brilliant scientific minds in the multiverse, and after all, this ain't rocket science.


Um. Nevermind.