Wow, first movies, music, news and now window shopping on the iPad? Not quite… In an effort to shakeup tablet-shopping, Amazon is mixing things up with the Windowshop app. In Windowshop, you can browse Amazon’s online store by scrolling through categorically arranged columns of product pictures. For a traditional online shopping experience, Amazon still has a regular mobile app. But for a visual approach, Windowshop for iPad offers an interesting alternative. While cool and different from the norm, the app ultimately provides little extra value or utility for online shoppers.

The Windowshop app lays out Amazon inventory according to a very Walmart like hierarchy around categories and sub-categories. Start high level in generic buckets such as Electronics, Clothing, Food, etc.. and narrow down your products by tapping deeper into each section. With each selection, sub-categories (such as Electronics > Computers > Keyboards) appear in stacked image columns where you can scroll top-down or left-right.

Clicking an item opens up a tabbed popup that lets you read the product description, reviews, photos and similar items. Again, same information but just a different layout.

The app is visually very clean and the checkout process seamless. It took me less than a minute to cart and buy a bookshelf for the apartment. As to whether or not the app actually allows you to ‘window shop’, the app is more of a Google Images for Products than it is a true window shopping app.

Windowshop is cool to play around with, but for your iPad shopping needs, stick with the Amazon Mobile App or the eBay iPad App.