The Mac App Store: Coming 1/6/11

TouchArcade has the news: the Mac App Store launches on January 6th, 2011. Apple knows a winning idea when they spot one, so they're rolling out direct delivery for computer software using the same model that drove iTunes and the App Store to success.

This is the future, people. I'm not pretending to be Criswell, but since my days on the US edition of T3 I've been saying that all hard storage media will die. Every bit of storage technology we've seen for the past 30 years was merely leading up to digital delivery. Floppy discs, CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray: they will all fall. One day soon, they will seem as novel as 8-track tapes, just like the idea of going to a store to buy a game or any other piece of software.

PC gaming already has a proven model in Steam, but it's not the most intuitive system for buying and installing software. Apple has a particular genius for creating smooth edges and a consumer-friendly experience. Could they even attempt a PC App Store some day?

If you're a Mac user (and I'm not) watch this space. This is the future, and remember: the future is "where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives!"