As you all know I am the resident Apple fanboy of The Love of Tech Podcast and The Gadget Gurus Network as Zack Egolf pointed out in last weeks guest editorial. With swirling rumors of the pending launch of the Mac app store I wondered if the Mac app store would have as large of an impact on desktop apps as the iOS app store did for mobile apps.

There is no denying the fact that Apple's iOS app store revolutionized mobile applications forever. Apple wasn't the first to the game. Applications existed on Palm and Windows Mobile devices prior to the app store but these suffered from some major issues that apple solved. Apple created an integrated store on the device that allow you to discover, buy, and install apps with one tap while the previous mobile application implementations required you to find the applications on the developers website, pay them with their specific payment system, download the application, install it on your device, and retrieve and enter the licence information. Now, every other mobile platform is adopting Apple's app store idea because normal users are actually buying and using third party apps.

Now lets look at the desktop. Currently to buy applications on Windows or OS X you have to follow a very similar process to the older mobile platforms and most normal people don't use any third party apps with the exception of a browser and office software. I believe that the Mac app store will solve the two main stumbling blocks that prevent normal users from buying apps on the desktop. The first is discovery. There are web services that help users find applications but most are not updated, aren't easy to navigate, and aren't preinstalled on every users' machine. Having an app store icon on the dock of every new Mac will greatly ease discovery of new apps because every user can find the app store and they can trust that the listings won't harm their machines. The second is the ease of purchasing. For many, entering your credit card information on the an unknown website is a non starter. Having your credit card already tied to an apple account means that you already trust the seller and you're not worried about buying an application.

I am confident that the mac app store will do to the Mac exactly what the iOS app store did for the iPhone; bring third party app usage into the mainstream and create a new developer gold rush. The real question is when will Microsoft introduce their app store?