Amazon Gives Glimpse Of Beefy iPad Kindle App

Amazon isn't saying when the offering, called Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers, will be available. But according to the blog D: All Things Digital, it won't be ready for the April 3 launch of Apple's Wi-Fi-only iPads.

The free software is similar to Amazon's Kindle For iPhone app but is "tailored to the size, look, and feel" of the iPad, according to the product page on Amazon's Web site. This apparently means it's been built to take advantage of the iPad's 9.7-inch screen and powerful new processor.

Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers also includes features like page turn animation, customizable background color, font size and screen brightness, and Whispersync technology, which automatically keeps track of bookmarks and notes and synchronizes this information with other Kindle compatible devices.

Amazon last week released a beta of Kindle for Mac, and in February introduced a Kindle app for Research In Motion's BlackBerry. Amazon is hoping to maintain what Forrester says is a 60 percent share of the North American e-reader hardware market, and it's also trying to offer multiple paths into its e-book catalog, which encompasses some 450,000 titles.

But while e-readers from Sony and Barnes & Noble haven't posed much of a threat to the Kindle, Apple's iPad and iBookstore together could alter the market landscape by packing an entire computing experience into a device that also handles e-reading. To sway iPad customers from using the built-in iBooks, Amazon will need Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers to be a bona fide home run.

Apple, which has content agreements with Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, HarperCollins Publishers and the Penguin Group, has already influenced the market by allowing publishers to set the retail prices of their e-books. Amazon, which previously set its own prices for Kindle e-books, is now giving publishers that capability on the condition that they sign three-year contracts guaranteeing no one else can offer their books for a lower price.

Apple is preparing to launch a separate App Store for the iPad and has set a March 27 deadline for developers that want their wares to be on display when it's launched.