What Amazon's Optimized Kindle-For-iPhone Tells Us

But as more than a few observers were quick to point out Monday, it could be Amazon's Kindle Store tweak that says more about Amazon's long-term e-reading strategy.

At the very least, whether Amazon and Apple can work as e-reading complements -- not competitors -- is one of the key questions facing Amazon's role as an e-reading leader going forward.

Amazon said Monday it had changed its free Kindle application for iPhone to make the process of acquiring books through the app and the Kindle store less cumbersome.

Now, iPhone users can click "Get Books" once and be taken right to the Kindle Store purchase page instead of having to manually open the Safari browser on the iPhone and access Amazon's Kindle store through Whispersync, the technology Amazon uses to link its Kindle library to the phone. With Whispersync, Amazon can also provide digital bookmarks that allow consumers access to their books through Kindle, iPhone or iPod touch without losing their place.

"The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones," said Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle, in a statement. "We've been working hard to respond to that feedback with a new Web site optimized for Safari on iPhone and we're excited to do that today."

Why would Amazon devote so many of its Kindle resources to Apple's platform, when, if rumors are true, Apple has a multipurpose tablet device in the works that could blow away the Kindle's market dominance -- or that of any device that can't do much more than e-reading? Theories abound.

"Notably, Apple has announced In-App Purchasing as an iPhone OS 3.0 developer tool for adding content to apps, with Apple taking a 30 percent cut of any sales handled in this matter," wrote Charles Starrett of iLounge, commenting on the move Monday. "The use of Safari appears to be a workaround to enable easy purchasing without Apple revenue sharing."

It stands to reason, however, that Amazon is enabling easier Kindle-ing on the iPhone for many of the same reasons it bought Lexcycle, the maker of the popular e-reading application Stanza.

For starters, the exposure via iPhone continues to make Amazon's name synonymous with e-reading and e-books. Even if the Kindle isn't longed for this world as a standalone e-reading device, the proliferation of Amazon's Kindle application and Kindle store on smartphones everywhere could be its long-term contingency plan.

Its CEO seems to think so, anyway.

"We are committed to making Kindle books available on a vast array of devices," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to The New York Times last week. "Whether you own a Kindle or not, we want you to buy Kindle books from us. With the Kindle device, we succeed in business only on the merits of how good the device is. If we can build the best reading device, then that is how we will succeed. But if you like to read books on the iPhone we want to support that, too. We want to see Kindle books read anywhere."