Amazon’s Cloud Player app for iOS allowed users to stream and download songs from its service, but there was no way to purchase tracks. Apple’s guidelines requires a 30% cut of profits from in-app purchases.
Amazon is working around this by developing a HTML5 application where iPhone and iPod Touch users can purchase tracks from a browser. This is great news for Amazon and music lovers as Amazon MP3 often provides steep discounts on albums and individual tracks. Amazon’s music catalog rivals that of iTunes with over 22 million songs.
In use, the Amazon MP3 web app provided great performance. Scrolling was fluid while browsing through different featured albums. Featured albums and deals are highlighted on the top of page. Bestsellers, new releases, and genres are all featured on the front page. Tap on an album and you’ll be taken to it’s own page where you can preview tracks by tapping the play button. Songs loaded quickly and played seamlessly. Once you’re ready to check out, all you have to do is log in with your Amazon account and the tracks will be purchased. You’ll then have to jump into the Amazon Cloud Player where you can either stream or download the tracks you just purchased. If you want to automate downloading newly purchased tracks, there is an option in Amazon Cloud Player to do so.
This workaround still adds one more step to buying tracks from Amazon, but it works well. You can try out the new Amazon MP3 web app by navigating to www.amazon.com/mp3 with any browser on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
