Apple’s much anticipated Mac App Store as downloadable software will be available in a few short weeks, launching Jan. 6. The App Store helped to seriously drive sales for the iPhone and iPod, meaning that while the Mac App Store may take some time to match the 300K mobile apps Apple carries out, it has significant potential, especially as far as the personal cloud goes.  From the Wall Street Journal,

“The Mac App Store comes as Apple attempts to capitalize on the popularity of its iPhones and iPads to sell more of its computers. Apple said it sold nearly 40 million iPhones in the fiscal year ended Sept. 25, roughly double the previous year. By comparison, the company sold about 13.7 million desktop and laptop computers, up 31% from the prior year.”

Apps and software are definitely a key factor for all hardware sales at this point in the consumer electronics game, and Apple definitely intends to gain the potentially immense momentum that a sufficient Mac App Store would provide. It certainly got the initial buzz going in the right direction, as this latest announcement is something a lot of Mac users – and probably prospective customers – were looking forward to since it was first announced back in September.

While apps are really becoming a driving force behind software development and distribution, the upcoming App Store isn’t without its problems.  It started out as a tool for mobile devices, and the experience isn’t going to be immediately transferrable to laptops and such.  The Guardian highlights some of the pros and cons, saying,

“…developers get a direct line to the user, who may hope to be able to trust these better than those found all over the place online – although Apple apps still have an extremely low number of malicious (or even badly-behaved) apps.

Apps you probably won’t be able to buy through the App Store? Well, pretty much anything that uses Adobe’s cross-platform AIR product, because of their demand for separate installers that would then run on the user’s machine. Apple doesn’t allow that. Apps have to be self-contained – there’s even a ban on apps that have in-app purchases.”