The Mac App Store on Mac OS X Lion |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
| Initial release | January 6, 2011[1] |
| Stable release | 1.1.2 / October 12, 2011 |
| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | Mac OS X 10.6.6 and later |
| Platform | Mac |
| Type | Digital distribution |
| Website | www.apple.com/mac/app-store |
The Mac App Store is a digital distribution platform for Mac OS X applications. It is developed by Apple Inc.. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010 at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event.[1][2][3] Apple began accepting app submissions from registered developers on November 3, 2010 in preparation for its launch.[4]
It was released on January 6, 2011 as part of the free Mac OS X v10.6.6 update for all current Snow Leopard users.[1][2] After 24 hours of release, Apple announced that there was a total of more than one million downloads.[5]
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Similar to the iOS App Store, the Mac App Store is regulated by Apple. Applications must be approved by Apple before becoming available on the store. Disallowed types of applications revealed by Apple include:[6][7]
Since the opening of the Mac App Store, Apple Inc. has increasingly used it as the primary means of distribution of its own in-house software products at the expense of Apple-branded software applications being sold at Apple Store locations. This position was perceivably increased with the July 2011 release of Mac OS X Lion, which was the first release of Mac OS X not sold in the boxes of DVDs which had been traditionally used to distribute the operating system at the Apple Store.
This method limited the reach of distribution of the operating system to those who currently use Mac OS X 10.6.6+, although other means offered by Apple after the release included a USB flash drive containing the operating system and a digital in-store download of the operating system through Apple Store locations.
This has also affected Apple's prior means of distribution through its own website, with the Downloads gallery being removed in July 2011 and replaced with links to the Mac App Store information page. However, it has not affected the Dashboard widget gallery, nor has it affected the Safari Extensions gallery, both of which remain online and web-based. The Apple Support Download section also remains online, as it provides mostly security updates for current and older software applications and operating system, many dating back to before 1998.
Not long after independent game developer Wolfire Games placed its game, Lugaru, on the Mac App store, as Lugaru HD for $9.99, the developer noticed a counterfeit copy of their game also being sold on the App Store for $0.99 USD. The developer contacted Apple on January 31, 2011, and on February 10, 2011, the counterfeit copy of the game was removed from the App Store.[10]
A number of news sites have remarked that for all the scrutiny Apple places on apps listed in their store, a counterfeit copy of an existing app should not have made it through the process, and the days it had been since the developer had alerted Apple to the counterfeit software is disconcerting to developers. [11]
The Mac App Store launched with over 1000 programs on January 6, 2011, including Apple's own iWork '09, iLife '11, Aperture and third-party applications ported from iOS, such as Angry Birds, Flight Control, Gravilux, and Twitter.[2][12][13][14] Most of the apps belonged to the Games category, which had nearly three times as many apps in the next largest category, Utilities. The most common price point was $20–50.[13] Angry Birds, a popular video game on the iOS App Store, was the number one paid app on the Mac App Store on the first day.[12]
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