eBooks on your iPad

Apple’s eagerly anticipated iPad may just be the catalyst the eBook sector needed after Amazon announced it would be making a Kindle app available for the device, competing with Apple’s on iBooks store.

Despite a battery life far below that of a dedicated eBook reader, it looks likely that the iPad will be the territory on which various eBook retailers will fight it out for sales with digital magazine publishers Zinio also set to support iPad and Google’s Android platform.

In the US Amazon’s Kindle reader has dominated the ebook market, however observers are already championing the more versatile iPad as the ‘Kindle killer’.

Here in the UK standalone eBook readers from such as the COOL-ER and Sony ranges have been the norm.

A UK release date for the iPad has yet to be confirmed beyond the vague statement of “late April”.