Apple announces Mac App Store. New opportunity for iPhone developers?

Mac App Store

Mac App Store

Apple has been successful in revolutionizing the way users discover and install applications on their iOS devices. They are  now ready to bring what they learnt from the App Store for iPhone and iPad to the Mac.

Steve Jobs, during ‘Back to the Mac’ keynote event announced that Apple will be launching the ‘Mac App Store’ which will be compatible with Lion and Snow Leopard. The Mac App Store will provide a marketplace for all developers registered with Apple to sell their Mac Apps on the new App Store. Developers will be offered 70/30 split (in favor of the developers) the same deal which is currently offered to the iOS developers.

Some of the main features of the Mac App Store are :

  • Best place to discover apps
  • One click downloads
  • Free and Paid apps
  • Automatic installation
  • Automatic updates

I think the automatic installation and the ability to discover some of the best apps for your Mac will certainly help the new app store in becoming yet another success for Apple. The demo during the keynote event showed how easy it was to install an app with one click which is an excellent example of Apple’s expertise in designing simple software that ‘just works’

The new store will also encourage developers to participate in the ‘Mac Developer Program’ as Apple’s store for mac apps will provide them with the opportunity to reach out to the masses.

Apple will launch the Mac App Store in 90 days from today and will start accepting developer submissions in November. It was certainly a very wise decision by Apple to allow people using Snow Leopard to access the store as that would help in reaching out to a much wider audience.

Developer of the popular game for iPhone called WordCrasher in a recent tweet expressed his interest in exploring the idea of bringing his game to the Mac which indicates that in a matter of months we might see our favorite iPhone apps and games making their way to the Mac!

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