Mac App Store Launching January 6th

Google’s Chrome web store may have beaten Apple to market by a little bit, but even Google fans will concede that this is the bigger event: Apple has confirmed that its Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries as of January 6th. Available to Snow Leopard users as a free download, it will be divided into categories that will sound familiar to iOS users, such as Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.

“The App Store revolutionized mobile apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can’t wait to get started on January 6.”

The Mac App Store lets you browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, view staff favorites, search categories and read customer ratings and reviews. Like on iPhone®, iPod touch® and iPad™, you can purchase, download and install apps in just one click and start using them immediately. Purchased apps can run on all of your personal Macs and updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store so it’s easy to keep all of your apps up to date. The Mac App Store is available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard® users as a free download through Software Update.

No word on how many apps will be available at launch, but considering that developers have been able to submit apps to Apple since November, that Apple’s offering a 70-30 revenue split, and that lots of people will be hungry to reach the Mac-wielding populace, I’d guess a pretty decent number. Desktop Angry Birds, anyone?

(Apple)