Taking the app to the Mac

The App store coming to a Mac near you in 90 days

How strange that on the day that Microsoft chose to launch the first Windows Phone 7 product Apple have decided to announce that, they’re about to take their app store to the Mac. Do you think the two are possibly connected?

At an Apple product launch for the new MacBook Air, Apple made the announcement that its App Store will now be opening up to Mac users.

The new MacBook app site is due to launch in 90 days’ time, and it will work much like the iOS version, allowing Mac users to browse, buy and install apps, with developers getting the usual app store 70% cut of the revenues.

It remains to be seen if the iOS developers decided to move their apps to the Mac platform, but for most of the big sellers it’s a no brainer, for those on smaller margins and not in the top apps it’ll be extra work for no guaranteed returns. It will depend on the numbers, and the work required. There’s no doubting that Mac users will probably have the same propensity to use and download an app on a Mac that they have on an iPhone or iPad. It’s also a good way to stop the drain that the iPad must be putting on the MacBook range. We’ve interviewed several people recently who have said that the iPad is replacing laptops rather than iPhones.

Apple is also launching a FaceTime desktop application for Macs, allowing people to video-chat with their iPhone and iPod-touch owning friends.

Additionally Jobs – he’s getting around a lot this week – announced that the App store had now passed the seven billion downloads milestone, up from 6.5 billion at the start of September. Earlier on in the week he announced that it had also hit 300K apps.