The Mac App Store launched today with 1,000 apps already available for download or purchase. Among these are Apple's own iLife and iWork suites. The Mac App Store is available to all Snow Leopard users via a software update rolled out automatically. Twitter for Mac (Tweetie 2.0) was announced and launched today as part of the opening of Mac App Store and is available now for free. Hopefully, Twitter will eventually launch a desktop app for Windows as well.

Mac App Store was announced back in October at Apple's Back to the Mac event. It provides you a quick way to browse and download applications to your Mac and get automatic free updates to those apps. A great article on TechCrunch pinpoints the Mac App Store as being phase 3 of Apple's quest to put the compact disc into extinction.