A Bit of Gushing About Amazon

Count me among the folks rejoicing today over the news that Amazon is releasing an HTML5 version of its Kindle app to run in Web browsers.

I say this as someone who’s currently a pretty frequent user of the “native” iPad version of the Kindle app, downloaded directly onto my device. I’m certainly curious to see what sort of experience I get reading e-books in a browser instead.

More important, I think this could be a seminal event in raising non-geeks’ awareness of the potential for mobile browser apps as an alternative to ones downloaded from iTunes and the like. While the merits of “native” versus HTML5 as app platforms are a really hot topic of debate among developers these days, I’m not sure if the average Joe is even aware of the difference.

I think most non-geeks either don’t download mobile apps at all or they’re pretty frequent downloaders, prompted by big marketing pushes from Apple, Google’s Android team, and in some cases the cellular carriers. I don’t think the average Joe has thought much along the lines of, hey, could I skip downloads and still add a bunch of cool functionality to my phone by some other means? Basically, can I eat my cake and have it too?

A move by one of the most popular native mobile apps out there into HTML5 would definitely provoke a lot of that sort of discussion. If Amazon ultimately phases out its downloadable Kindle app altogether to support HTML5 as its only app platform, as a lot of tech pundits are now predicting, that would be even stronger, more visible proof of concept to the wider market.