"The App Store revolutionised 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 6 January".

The Mac App Store lets you browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, view staff favourites, 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.

Mac developers set the price for their apps, keep 70 per cent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit developer.apple.com/programs/mac.