After iOS 5 came and broke Stanza good and proper, it seemed almost certain that Amazon intended on killing off their world class e-reading app once and for all.
Thankfully, Amazon has taken pity on fans of the app with a long overdue update finally fixing Stanza under iOS 5, but with that reprieve comes a dose of bad news: according to Amazon, this will be the last Stanza update.
Although there are no new features, the new Stanza 3.2 update fixes the crashing issues that have plagued Stanza users since the very earliest iOS 5 developer betas.
Unfortunately, Macworld says that this is the last update we can likely expect from Amazon:
The company’s customer service team told one Macworld reader via email that after releasing this update, “we will no longer be updating or supporting Stanza… We would like to thank you for your interest in Stanza, and let you know that Amazon is committed to providing the best reading experience on iOS though the Kindle for iPhone, iPod and iPad apps.” A Macworld staffer received a very similarly-worded email from Amazon customer support as well, though we have yet to receive official confirmation from Amazon’s public relations team.
I suppose that keeping Stanza updated doesn’t make a lot of sense against the bottom line, but still, if Amazon simply wants to get people to switch to their Kindle app, the least they could do is implement some of Stanza’s better features, like page dimming, to help the migration along. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m personally relieved I’ll get at least another year out of what I consider to be one of the five best apps on the App Store.
