As you probably heard by now, the Mac App Store is live. It is bundled together with OS X 10.6.6 update. USD$4.99 is the new USD$0.99 in the Mac App Store. I have not gotten any paid app from there yet as I bought all the software directly from the software company itself and hence the Mac App Store is pretty useless for me in terms of paid app. I only wish you can transfer license for those Mac software that you have bought to the Mac App Store so that it will handle the updating for you. But right now that is not possible. The only way is you have to buy it again which is stupid. Lets see what happen to the Mac App Store eventually.

From Panic Blog (Makers of Coda & Transmit)

If you’re a current customer, there’s no way to convert a previous purchase into a Mac App Store purchase — that requires a re-buy. But remember, what you have now will continue to work just fine.

The Mac App Store may show software bought from us previously as “Installed”, even though they’re two different licenses. You will not get Mac App Store auto-updates unless you purchase from the Mac App Store. To re-enable the “Purchase” button in the Mac App Store, just drag the app to the trash and empty your trash. Your preferences/sites will not be affected.

Main Page

App Page

Purchases Page

Updates Page

Categories Page

Top Charts Page

Official Site: Mac: App Store

Steam for Mac is now available for download and you will get Portal for free!

Portal used to cost money. Until May 24th, it’s free. End of story.
Well, technically speaking, there are some strings attached. Fortunately, they’re entirely decorative. We just like the way they look, swaying in the gentle breeze created by a million people simultanously fainting from shock at the news that Portal is free. Now you have no reason not to try Portal.

“I have a reason,” some of you are probably typing into an angry email. “You see, sir, I own a Mac.”

Well guess what: For the first time ever, Portal is also available for the Mac.

“Capital news! But the excellent puzzle adventure Portal won over 40 Game of the Year awards; Surely it must cost at least five or six hundred dollars.”

You’d think that, especially since it actually won over 70 Game of the Year Awards. But, like we keep saying, Portal is free. Free on the Mac. Free on the PC. But only until May 24th. So you only have a few days to decide if your free copy of Portal is worth the price we’re currently charging – which is you ever-so-slightly moving your index finger just barely enough to click the big red “download” button right there to the left.

Steam: Download Steam For Mac
Steam: Mac Store

Went to the Nokia Ovi Store Showcase at Ben & Jerry’s at The Cathay. I always like the fact that Nokia always try new places for their events. Anyway we can order anything on the menu we like in Ben & Jerry’s. Even the SGD$88 item which contains 20 scoop of ice cream! I only managed to eat 1 scoop and drink 1 cup of smoothies as I was pretty bloated.

By Nelson Wee

The Nokia Ovi Store showcase was to give bloggers a brief on the Ovi Store. Ovi Store supports up to 75 devices (even those 3 years ago models) running S60 or S40 OSes. When you launch the Ovi Store, it will detect your device and will only show applications that are compatible with your devices.

More Than Just Applications And Games

Nokia Ovi Store is not just about applications and games but it also includes Audio (podcast), Video (trailers, clips), Flash channels (screen savers) and Personalization (ringtones, wallpapers).

Ovi Store Applications

They also showcase some of the very interesting apps to us, the most interesting one to me was the app eyeSight. If you are in a meeting and forgot to silence your phone which is placed on the table, when the phone rings, just wave your hand above your phone and it will be silent automatically. Cover the earpiece with your hand and once you remove your hand, it will send a pre-configured SMS to the person who called you! Pretty neat application.

Downloading A Paid Application

The main highlight yesterday was the application buffet! They pass us their Stahub SIM cards, place it in your own Nokia phone and login to your Ovi Store account. Next, you can download ANY paid apps you like for free to your Nokia devices!

There is a Singapore Ovi Store which of course the prices of the apps are listed in SGD and they also allow you to pay by operator billing (Starhub only at the moment). By default if there is no localize Ovi Store in your country, the price listed will be listed in Euros and you are only allowed to pay by credit cards.

I did ask what will happen to N-gage, they say N-gage will still focus on games which are multiplayer based. But I think eventually they will move all the games to Ovi Store.