Amazon Cloud Reader validates HTML5

A lot has been said of HTML5 and its potential to disrupt or eventually displace the stranglehold Apple has over the mobile app marketplace. As with many new technologies, we all wait to see the killer app to teach the rest of us what is possible and to raise the bar. Amazon has done this with their web based book reader. I 'installed' it (by visiting https://read.amazon.com/about in my browser) last night on my first-gen iPad, logged in and started reading a book where I had left off the previous evening. It just works. Scrolling and swiping through pages felt no different than the native reader.

One of the first things the app does is request permission to increase the amount of local storage permitted to 50MB. The reader takes advantage of HTML5 local storage and lets users read while offline. For what it's intended to do, read books and browse/buy from the Amazon book store, it's excellent.

I think this app will show other book, newspaper and magazine publishers 'how to do it' and slowly begin the move away from Apple's app store. Publishers that make the move will gain access to a broader audience across more devices while keeping an additional 30% of each media sale in their pocket rather than handing it over to Apple.