Amazon is taking aim at its main digital music competitor, Apple, as the online retailer announced on Thursday that it is launching an MP3 store optimized for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The store has a catalog of over 22 million songs and allows users to purchase songs for the Apple devices and listen to them via the Amazon Cloud Player. This move is the latest attempt by Amazon to further chip away at the dominance of Apple's iTunes Music Store.

"Since the launch of the Amazon Cloud Player app for iPhone and iPod touch, a top request from customers has been the ability to buy music from Amazon right from their devices. For the first time ever, iOS users have a way do that - now they can access Amazon's huge catalog of music, features like personalized recommendations, deals like albums for $5, songs for $0.69, and they can buy their music once and use it everywhere," said Steve Boom, VP of Amazon Music.