Amazon is to release an application to allow Android-based smartphone and tablet device owners to get in on its Kindle services at some stage during this summer.

If nothing else, we'll be curious to see how well it does...

At the moment, there are Kindle applications available for both Windows and Mac OS X, as well as Apple’s iPhone OS and BlackBerry. As with all of the above, the version of Amazon’s Kindle set to be made available for Android is to include Amazon’s much touted Whispersync, which allows for bookmarks to remain synchronised across multiple devices – should you read on your notebook and then pick up your phone, you should be able to pick up at exactly the same point.

Amazon’s Kindle director, Jay Marine, said of the upcoming release,

“Kindle for Android is the perfect companion application for Kindle and Kindle DX owners, and is also a great way for customers to enjoy over 540,000 books in the Kindle Store even if they don’t yet have a Kindle.”

Given the success of Amazon’s Kindle services, rolling out the service to more mobile users seems a wise move indeed, especially considering the fact that the Kindle app for Apple’s iPhone has done so well. Still, it’s hard not to consider the Kindle app as something that’s more suited to being a ‘companion’ to a physical ebook reader, thanks to the combination of backlighting and battery life issues.

Regardless, Amazon has already made some steps in the right direction with its Android app, most notably the fact that the app only requires version 1.6 of Google’s mobile operating system. The Android market’s biggest issue for the moment seems to be the fragmentation of its user base as updates are made available for some devices far before or after others. Making the app available for as many versions of the OS as possible would go some way to alleviating those issues.

For more details you can check out Amazon’s own page on the Kindle app for Android.