Initial Thoughts On The Mac App Store.
The new Apple Mac App Store has arrived today as planned. I was eager to have a good look around it, and this is what I found.
Only some of the applications that I had already installed on my computer from previous independent software purchases are shown as already installed by the Mac App Store. For instance Yojimbo from Barebones and Coda from Panic show as installed, but Marsedit 3 from red sweater and Pixelmator do not.
The apps that I have previously purchased outside of the Mac App Store and that show as installed, do not show me the price that they now cost on the new store. I guess I do not need to know how much they cost if I have already purchased them but what If someone says “that’s a great bit of software how much does it cost?”
The apps that I have previously purchased outside of the Mac App Store do not show in the purchases section of the store. I can see that this is because I have not actually purchased them from the store but it would have been nice if they had showed up so I could take advantage of the update system that the new store should offer.
Because of the above point it would seem that a copy of iLife 11 already owned from the purchase of a new system can only be used on that system, but if a copy of an app that makes up iLife like iPhoto is purchased in the Mac App Store it can be used on multiple systems.
Purchasing a free app such as Textwrangler from Barebones Software via the Mac App Store, allows the app to show in the Purchases section, and overwrites the existing install with no problems.
