It you’re looking for another way to exchange currency for your Mac apps, Apple’s long-awaited Mac App Store has a delivery date of January 6, 2011.
Per Macworld, the storefront will go online in 90 countries and the storefront, first unveiled in October at Apple’s Back to the Mac event, will aim to offer a parallel experience to the one Apple pioneered in 2008 with its App Store for iOS devices. Users will be able to purchase paid and download free apps in categories like Education, Games, Productivity, Utilities, and more. Any downloaded can be installed on all a user’s personal Macs, and updates are handled by the store. The revenue-sharing deal is the same as with the App Store: developers take 70% of income, with Apple taking the other 30% to cover hosting costs and credit card fees.
In spite of the idea, the Mac App Store has already raised some controversy, with many developers pointing to restrictive rules that would block several popular existing apps from sale and others worrying that it may signal the beginning of a slippery slope towards a locked-down ecosystem similar to iOS devices. On the flipside, some have argued that the Mac App Store may be a good thing for consumers and developers alike, with the former gaining an easy central location to find software for their computer, and the latter getting massive exposure among Mac users.
The Mac App Store will require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard to install and run and be available as a free download via Software Update.