Amazon launches iPhone app

Amazon on Wednesday said it launched an application on Apple's App Store to target the iPhone and iPod touch.

The news comes as Apple's App Store is generating a good amount of buzz this holiday season (Techmeme).

Amazon said in a statement that it is experimenting with a feature called Amazon Remembers. The feature tracks items that customers track every day and tries to match them with Amazon results.

Here's the explanation:

Customers simply snap photos with their iPhone, the photos are automatically uploaded to Amazon.com, which then tries to find products similar to the ones in the photos. As soon as the customer receives the results, they can then purchase the item immediately or “remember it” for later in their Amazon account.

Sounds slightly creepy but should be effective. I know from my Kindle that having those mobile hooks to the Amazon store can be dangerous. It's easy to buy more stuff.

Update: Bob Warfield makes a great point. Why didn't Amazon see the Kindle possibilities via iPhone? After all, Amazon makes its money on e-commerce sales not the Kindle hardware itself.