Portalos News

Amazon Opens Up Mac Downloads Stores

In the middle of litigation with Apple over the use of the term "AppStore" for its mobile application store, today Amazon launched two new digital download store for Mac software.

Amazon's new store, picked up by The Loop, includes games and applications. Overall, Amazon's got 252 pieces of software to be sold, most of which is the application versus the title game.

Just like Apple Mac App Store, which is how the company sells both its own software and third-party Mac, Amazon users can redownload the application if they somehow misplace a file. However, unlike with Apple's offerings, that there is no mechanism to keep the application up to date - something Amazon has been submitted to the software maker. Some applications are also bundled with DRM or serial authentication number, the latter of which is not a concern on the Mac App Store.

So far there’s are already some software that can not be found on the Mac App Store, including Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, which is being promoted heavily. Microsoft has long offered it as a digital download through its own stores, but not on Apple Mac App Store.