Mac App Store Opens for Business

by P. J. Connolly

The Mac App Store opened on Jan. 6 as expected, giving Apple customers a way to buy applications with a minimum of fuss.

The Mac App Store can be accessed from an icon that the 10.6.6 update adds to the Dock, or from the Apple menu, where it replaces the link to the Apple Websites Mac Software page.

Since browsing through the Mac App Store may soon become as tedious as window-shopping in the iTunes App Store, the tab of Featured applications is listed first in the App Store window.

Applications in the Mac App Store can be browsed by category, with some cross-listing between categories when appropriate.

The view for each category includes a skyline view of applications that may be especially useful or popular.

Unfortunately, the tile view of an application category doesnt tell you much about the application beyond its name, publisher and price; a brief description would save customers a lot of clicks over a short period of time.

See what applications are currently burning up the sales charts with the help of the Top Charts tab in the App Store window; these are divided into paid and free applications.

Each applications description page lists basic information such as language availability, size and version, and provides a description of the features with a screenshot.