Make of Store: Today we celebrate our 10th birthday

Can you still remember the launch of the Apple App Store? This was accurate some time ago, in July 2008. The Mac App Store even started later: the software store for Mac owners opened its doors exactly ten years ago on January 6, 2011, while Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard.

Here are some interesting facts and figures for the 10th anniversary. In a statement released by Apple on that date, it was stated that the Mac App Store was “open for business”. “The Mac App Store has gotten off to a great start with over 1,000 apps,” said former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “We hope users will love this innovative new way of finding and purchasing their favorite apps.”

On the first day of its release, more than a million apps were downloaded from the Mac App Store, and by December 2011 there were already over 100 million downloads. All apps that end up in the Mac App Store are subjected to Apple’s initial testing to ensure the best possible security and quality. Developers can deliver their apps out of the store, but all external applications coming from MacOS Catalina must be Apple certified to ensure that they are not malware-free.

Small business plan for small developers

Apple, along with other App Store platforms, also collects 30 percent commission from developers on sales on the Mac App Store – which has attracted a lot of criticism in recent times. For this reason, Apple recently called it the Small Business Plan, which receives only 15 percent commission from small developers with sales of less than $ 1 million per calendar year. Developers should seriously apply for this project.

With the launch of Magos Mojave in 2018, the Mac App Store received its first major design update, which includes the “Discover” tab to keep track of popular and new apps and games. At the same time, Apple simplified the sandboxing rules for published applications, so that applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Lightroom soon opened in Apple’s software store.

Since 2019, developers using MacOS Catalina and Xcode 11 have been able to create Mac applications from iPod apps in just a few steps. In the same year, Apple’s own game subscription was launched on the Apple Arcade Mac App Store and Mobile App Store. The Mac App Store has its own “Arcade” tab, where you can find Mac-compatible subscription games. Last year, another step was taken to connect iOS and MacOS by making the iPhone and iPad applications available on the M1 Mac with the Apple Silicon chip. So it will be interesting to see how the Mac App Store will evolve in the coming decade.