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Apple unwraps app store for proper computers

Can OSX offerings replicate fondle-slabware success?

Apple has launched an online applications store for its Mac computers.

Cupertino hopes that its latest cloudy marketplace will replicate the success of its iPhone apps store and bring on board plenty of software coders for developing progs on the company's latest operating system, Mac OS X.

The latest store went live in the past hour and comes loaded with over 1,000 programs, including a combination of paid and free apps for punters who link to the stuff via Apple iTunes accounts.

In effect, the Jobsian outfit is hoping to shift its customers away from shrink-wrapped software programs over to making direct downloads of apps that are suitable for Apple's Mac platform.

For developers, the payout system works similarly to that already used on the firm's iPhone apps store.

Coders apply a price tag to their apps and scoop up 70 per cent of the revenue from sales. Apple gets the remaining 30 per cent slice of the pie.

And, like apps approved by Apple for the iPhone, the latest store will be a porn-free zone.

It's unsurprising that the company has simply applied the same business model it used for the iPhone online apps shop, which now dishes up more than 300,000 progs since its launch over two years ago.

But take-up of the Mac apps store might prove more difficult for the Steve Jobs-run tech vendor. ®

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