14 DAY TRIAL // In a report that just hit the wires, Apple confirmed that its forthcoming Mac App Store is scheduled to launch early next month, in an attempt to make discovering, installing and updating applications easier than ever before.
As usual, the company’s confirmation comes via an official statement posted to PR section of Apple.com:
CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2010—Apple® today announced that the Mac® App Store℠ will open for business on Thursday, January 6. By bringing the revolutionary App Store experience to Mac OS® X, the Mac App Store makes discovering, installing and updating Mac apps easier than ever. The Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.
CEO Steve Jobs is proud to make the introduction, stating that “The App Store revolutionized mobile apps. We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”
This is one of the few (if not the first) times that the Apple CEO refers to Macs as PCs.
The company is known to have reserved this designation for when referring to Windows or Linux-powered machines.
Apple’s official report continues with a brief description of the Mac App Store.
According to the Cupertino giant, “The Mac App Store lets you browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, view staff favorites, search categories and read customer ratings and reviews.”
The system is pretty much the same one as with iOS devices - customers purchase, download and install apps with one click and are able to “start using them immediately,” Apple claims.
Surely, this only applies to software that doesn’t require a reboot.
“Purchased apps can run on all of your personal Macs and updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store so it’s easy to keep all of your apps up to date,” Apple continues to explain.
“The Mac App Store is available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard users as a free download through Software Update,” the report reads on.
As with the iOS App Store, Apple will give devs 70 percent of all revenue. The Mac maker retains the remaining 30 percent for maintenance of the service.
Developers who distribute free apps are not charged for hosting, marketing or credit card fees.