Mac App Store Released

Last week, the Mac App Store went live. In the update to 10.6.6, this new application was added. The familiar icon can be found between the Dashboard and the Finder icons in the dock. The Mac App Store, or as I like to call it "The Mac Store", launched with about 1000 applications. Not a very large number, but considering it was only three months since the announcement it is nice to see so many applications. Applications range from games, to productivity, to entertainment, etc.  I personally found a free app, Alfred, to be quite useful. It is a productivity app that easily lets you navigate through different things on the computer. The Mac Store uses your Apple ID to track your purchases. Many of the applications are good, but there has been some complaint over the fact that few are able to do cross computer syncing. It is no good if you can download an application, such as one that tracks important information, to multiple computers, but not sync the information across all of them.  According to Apple's website, new apps should be added every day. As far as I can tell, nothing new has been added yet. Something to note: If you already own an application that is on the Mac Store, it will recognize that you own it and that it is installed. For example, I had Text Wrangler, but it was not up to date. Once I updated Text Wrangler, the Mac Store recognized it. It is a good start, but whether or not I will be an avid users depends on what is being offered. At the moment, I don't think I will be using it very much.

~Dave