We thought it was too quiet on the Apple front and just like clockwork, the company has kicked off the New Year with its first big launch of 2011; the Mac App Store. The store went live last week and we’ve had a good dig around the new service, which we are happy to say is every bit as good as we hoped it would be.
By Leo Stiles
To get the App Store on your Mac you just need to be running Snow Leopard and hit the Software Update button. From there you will be prompted to accept an OS update. Once installed, a familiar App Store icon will have appeared on your task bar.
In order to get started you will have to input your Apple ID and password and then accept yet another set of Terms and Conditions that Apple appears to be so fond of. After that you will have to reconfirm your payment details which is a small bit of a hassle but understandable from a security perspective.
The App Store for Mac has pretty much the same interface as you would find in all the other Apple App Stores and is pretty easy to navigate around, with standard sections like Featured Apps and Top Charts all easily accessible from the home page.
So just what is it like? Very familiar is the first thing that hit us, with navigation pretty much second nature to anyone who has ever picked up an Apple product. Digging a little deeper revealed an oppressing amount of diversity for a service that is now a little more than a week old.
Pricing on the apps range from excellent free stuff like Twitter and Evernote right up to full price software such as the iWork suite, which are now broken down into separate applications and priced individually at €15.99. At the moment some caution is advised because some of the more expensive apps are untested and there hasn’t yet been sufficient time for reviews of product to build up. That said, we are still mightily impressed with the diversity and so far none of the apps have appeared with crazy pricing.
Ease of use
Downloading an app is a one-click affair; just hit buy and the app icon appears on the taskbar along with a progress indicator. Once it’s finished, you can go right ahead and use the application and this is perhaps the most refreshing part; the apps are pretty much idiot-proof. There is no registration, no rebooting of the computer and no splash screens telling you that the installation is doing something technical – it just works.
All the apps that you download are automatically put onto your taskbar but if you feel like that is going to clutter your desktop in no time, just remove them, as the apps are installed in the Applications folder just like any other program.
We have to say that our Mac App Store experience so far has been a pleasure and while the arrival of such a store on the Mac came as little surprise, the implications for the Mac platform are massive.
For starters, the App Store makes finding and buying software for a Mac a doddle and will end the days of Mac users walking past acres of Windows software to find the little Apple corner of their local computer shop.
The universality of the Mac App Store will make buying an Apple computer a real contender in the market for the first time, ever as traditionally people have been put off by the lack of familiarity and the premium pricing. These days, you would be hard pressed to find any tech-savvy person that doesn’t know what an app is and the ubiquity of the iPod Touch and iPhone will ensure that the Mac App Store will be a big decider for people looking to buy a new computer.
Impact on competitors
Lastly, the App Store will not be easily replicated by Apple’s competition for the simple reason that many computers are built by hardware manufacturers that have no interest in getting into the software side of the business. The big boys, the likes of Hewlett Packard and Dell, will no doubt be looking at this development with an eye to develop their own versions but this will be no mean feat, especially as they don’t have anything to do with the operation system.
Microsoft is not likely to take this one lying down, as the supremacy of the Windows platform is being challenged in all sorts of ways that were almost unthinkable a few years ago. Google’s Android and Chrome operating systems are already gaining traction and a resurgence of Mac sales could hugely damage the Redmond giant.
It’s still early days for the App Store but with initial reports putting the first day of downloads at over one million, it would be hard to imagine that Apple has anything other than another huge success on their hands. So far, we love it but we would want to see more big hitters on the store in the future such as Adobe’s Creative Suite and Final Cut, in addition to some real top tier gaming titles.
Now if you will excuse us, we are late for our daily Angry Birds session.
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