Hasta La Gadget!

The Mac App Store has launched, freshly stocked with more than 1,000 OS X applications. The store comes as part of an OS X update, version 10.6.6, and is a standalone application rather than being yet another add-on to the already-creaking-and-bloated iTunes.

The store works a lot like the iOS App Store we know already: You sign in with your Apple ID, and then you can shop. Buy a Mac app, and the payment is charged to your registered credit card account. The app downloads automatically and is placed in the applications folder, with a convenient shortcut placed in the dock. (The icon actually leaps from the store window and lands in the dock — neat.)

This is clearly aimed at novice users who may never have actually downloaded and installed third-party software before, and the interface will be instantly familiar to anyone who has used the App Store in iTunes or on an iPad.

That said, there is plenty for power users, too. Apple’s flagship photo-editing software, Aperture, is in the store for just $80. You can still buy it from the conventional Apple Store, but it’ll cost the usual $200. That’s quite a saving.

The iWork office suite is in there, too, although it remains at the ‘09 version, not the new ‘11 update many were hoping for. The three iWork apps — Pages, Numbers and Keynote — cost $20 apiece, which is less than the usual $80 bundle price. If you already have these installed on your Mac, the App Store detects this and shows them as “installed,” just like on the iPad.

There are also free apps — the slick new Twitter, for example, which is the long awaited v2.0 of Tweetie for Mac -– as well as some old favorites: Angry Birds is quite something on a 27-inch iMac screen.

There are no trials in the Mac App Store, and submissions are subject to strict rules, just like the iOS store. It appears that some of these can be waived, though. Twitter is clearly using custom, nonstandard user-interface elements, and it is featured on the front page.

Apple is playing by its own rules here, too. No trial versions are allowed in the store, so developers have to host them on their own sites. Apple’s own trial for the iWork suite is on the main Apple site.

I predict that the store is going to be huge. It has the same kid-in-a-candy-store addictive qualities of the iPhone and iPad stores, along with a few features missing from the mobile versions. On the Mac, for example, all your purchases are listed under a tab in the top toolbar.

Finally, here’s a tip: Up in the Apple menu, on the top left of your screen, you may see a new entry called “App Store.” This replaces the old “Mac OS X Software” which has quietly been retired.

Mac App Store [Apple]
Apple’s Mac App Store Opens for Business [Apple]

See Also:

• Mac App Store to Launch Jan. 6
• Mac App Store Provokes Developer Interest, Concern
• Topic Page for Apple App Store

LAS VEGAS — Microsoft unveiled its vision of the future, where everything from phones and tablets to big-ass tables runs Windows.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered a somnolescent and nearly news-free keynote presentation on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show here, laying out his company’s strategy for home entertainment, mobile content, PCs and tablets.

“Whatever device you use, now or in the future, Windows will be there,” Ballmer said.

For home entertainment, that means games, video and music delivered via Xbox 360 and its hit wireless, touchless controller, Kinect. Microsoft has sold 8 million Kinect kits since it was first released two months ago.

In one of the keynote’s few bits of original news, Microsoft announced that Xbox 360 users would soon be able to use Kinect to control Netflix via gestures and voice. In addition, Hulu Plus will be coming to Xbox 360 this spring, also with Kinect support.

The Xbox avatar of Steve Ballmer delivers the news about Kinect’s improved facial expression feature, avatarKinect. Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

And Kinect now has enhanced face recognition, so it can identify smiles, eyebrow raises and other facial gestures, mapping those onto your Xbox avatar, which then moves and makes expressions in an odd, artificial mimicry of what your body is doing.

In one of the keynote’s more surreal moments, Ballmer’s avatar delivered the news about the new feature, called avatarKinect.

For smartphones, Microsoft is betting on Windows Phone 7. Ballmer reprised the company’s launch of the platform in late 2010, and announced that it would soon be adding cut-and-paste support to the mobile OS.

Ballmer also showed off a new version of Microsoft Surface, the company’s often-mocked multitouch-capable table. The new version uses infrared sensors instead of cameras, enabling it to be just 4 inches thick (thin enough to mount on a wall for kiosk use). Its “Pixel Sense” technology also detects visual information, not just touch, so it can “see” objects or writing material laid on top of it.

For everything else, however, Microsoft is counting on Windows 7 and its successors.

That means Windows will be the platform of choice for nearly all devices, from tiny slates to full-fledged PCs and even large kiosk devices like the Microsoft Surface.

To make good on that vision, Microsoft is developing versions of Windows that will run on the low-power ARM processors found in many smartphones and some tablets today.

Microsoft demonstrates a version of Windows running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Microsoft demonstrated Windows running on prototype systems built around chips from ARM manufacturers Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia. (Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip is used in two new dual-core smartphones from Motorola and LG.) The demos included such bread-and-butter Windows features as Internet Explorer, PowerPoint and network printing, all of which seemed impressively fast despite the low-power chips at the systems’ hearts.

The company is also aiming to beef up support for other “system-on-a-chip” devices, by which it means any CPU that incorporates a wider range of functions that are typically found in computer processors. For instance, Intel’s new graphics-enhanced chips and AMD’s Fusion APUs (which combine a CPU and GPU capabilities in one chip) were also featured in the onstage demos.

“Support for system on a chip means Windows will be everywhere, on every kind of device, without compromise. All the power and flexibility of Windows on low-power, long-lasting devices,” Ballmer said.

“You’ll be able to use Windows anywhere you go, from the small screen to the big screen.”

Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Microsoft plans to introduce a special version of Windows for low-power mobile devices like tablets at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show, according to multiple reports.

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg claim to have both heard that Microsoft will discuss a version of Windows that supports mobile ARM chips and other low-power processors. The Journal adds that the new Windows OS isn’t expected to be available for two years.

My instant reaction to these reports: WTF?

Microsoft already has a new version of Windows designed for mobile devices: Windows Phone 7. The company hired new executives, spent million of dollars on development facilities, rethought its entire mobile strategy and took an entire year to whip up a touch-friendly mobile OS from scratch.

In terms of power and features, Windows Phone 7 hasn’t caught up with Android or iOS yet, but it’s a solid start. It’s certainly more fit for tabletization than the desktop Windows. There are many reasons why a Windows 7– based tablet makes no sense.

Windows Phone 7 is also light-years ahead of Microsoft’s previous mobile OS, Windows Mobile, to say nothing of Windows CE, Microsoft’s first mobile OS, which lives on as an “embedded” OS powering hospital devices, manufacturing equipment, point-of-sale devices, and the like.

So why in the world would Microsoft throw more money and talent at a new mobile version of Windows when it’s already made great progress on a newer, better one?

I like the well-informed Mary Jo Foley’s skeptical interpretation of the news. She thinks that Microsoft will announce a new version of Windows Embedded Compact, a trimmed-down version of Windows CE made especially for enterprise devices. That OS, which is currently in beta, already runs on ARM, and might make a suitable platform for Windows-powered tablets, especially the kind attached to your UPS driver’s barcode scanner.

Among other points, Foley notes that the timing is right, and that Microsoft announced tablet partners earlier this year who are already in the business of making Windows Embedded Compact devices.

That outcome would make a lot more sense to me, and if Foley’s right, Microsoft’s “tablet” news won’t be as exciting for the average gadget geek aching for a Microsoft-powered iPad competitor (unless you have a urinary tract disorder).

See Also:

• 7 Reasons You Won't Want a Windows 7 Slate
• It's Not Easy to Make a Tablet, Stantum Slate PC Proves
• Microsoft Touts Home Entertainment at CES Keynote
• HP's Windows 7 Slate Strikes at the iPad
• Official: HP Slate Will Run WebOS

Photo: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks up the goods at CES 2010.
Jon Snyder/Wired.com