Amazon Kindle 2 may support better browsing as Apple iPad looms

Amazon enjoyed a market with weak competition for quite a while but now with products like the Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple’s upcoming iPad the company is experiencing pressure to innovate. That’s great for end consumers, many of which are looking to do more with a portable wireless device than just read books. A new job posting from Amazon hints that they’re ready to explore adding features. One example? Better web browsing.

With the Apple iPad shipping in April and Barnes & Noble’s Nook nipping at Amazon’s heels, the company needs to provide more features in order to maintain its existing set of loyal users and attract new segments. A new engineer position posted over at Lab126, which is the division at Amazon that developed the Kindle 2 will explore building a better web browsing experience for the device.

Michael Calore over at WebMonkey noticed the job posting and the key line is “. . . to provide an innovative Embedded Web Browser”. Company job posting are often strong sources of early information as they share pieces of what their strategy will be moving forward.

The Kindle 2 struggles when it comes to web browsing right now because it can’t handle complex web applications, it doesn’t display images very well and it can’t play videos. Granted that’s largely by design because it was originally intended only as a paper-like reading experience using E Ink.

Still, considering mobiles devices like those that run the Android operating system, the iPhone and the upcoming iPad it sounds like Amazon will need to make the classic eBook Reader do more. Another way they’re trying to do that is by building out a network of developers similar to what Apple and Google have done with their devices. That way third party developers can apply their creative and entrepreneurial spirits to generate new productivity and entertainment options for Kindle 2 users.