Amazon Preparing Kindle App for iPad

Following its release of a Kindle app for the Mac last week, Amazon is preparing a Kindle app for the iPad according to The New York Times.

Amazon has posted a page on its site describing upcoming Kindle apps for Tablet Computers, where the iPad is specifically mentioned. The iPad app will have the same functionality as the one currently available for the iPhone, including Amazon's Whispersync technology for syncing bookmarks, notes, last page read, and more across multiple devices.

Also mentioned is the ability for users to shop for more Kindle eBooks. Amazon does not state, however, whether this functionality will be built into the iPad app, which would put it in direct competition with Apple's iBooks app that will offer the ability to purchase ebooks through the iTunes store. In the iPhone Kindle app, a link to purchase eBooks is provided that opens the Safari browser to an iPhone-optimized version of the Kindle eBook store. eBooks purchased there are downloaded automatically to the iPhone the next time the Kindle app is opened.

The iPad Kindle app, demonstrated to a New York Times reporter last week, will offer virtual page turning and various ways to present an eBook library to a user, including one "where large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree" and the "suns position in that image varies with the time of day."

According to the report, Amazon has stated that it will not take advantage of Apple's official invitation to developers to submit iPad apps and will instead wait to test it on an iPad after its April 3rd release. Amazon has also disclosed that it is not one of the entities that received advance access to an iPad for development and testing.

Amazon's acknowledgement that an iPad application is in development follows a similar disclosure from Barnes & Noble earlier this month.