Amazon has embraced Web apps as a way around Apple’s App Store subscription rules. The company has introduced Kindle Cloud Reader, an HTML5-based ebook reading app that provides access to Kindle content in the cloud and to Amazon’s Kindle Store.

Apple takes a 30% cut of sales made through its in-app purchasing system, as it does for App Store downloads. Amazon, which competes with Apple to sell ebooks, found this arrangement was not tenable.

With the release of its Kindle Cloud Reader app, Amazon is bypassing Apple’s tollbooth. Apple has authority over iOS apps by virtue of the agreements it requires iOS developers and iOS app publishers to sign. HTML5, however, is not a proprietary technology and developers are free to create Web apps as they see fit.

“We have written the application from the ground up in HTML5, so that customers can also access their content offline directly from their browser,” said Amazon Kindle director Dorothy Nicholls.