Pi Store
A few months ago, the Raspbian distribution was extended to include an app store. Although the Pi Store has a few minor weaknesses, it could be a big part of future Raspberry Pi development.
Raspberry Pi gets an app store
Raspbian is the most widely used distribution for the Raspberry Pi, and users have no cause for complaint when it comes to the choice of software: The official repository of the Debian Linux distribution that is the basis for Raspbian lists more than 35,000 packages. Additionally, Raspbian's built-in package manager does a good job of managing all these packages. When the user installs a new program, it checks the existing dependencies on other required software and libraries and resolves them.
The package manager built into Raspbian is great for managing free software that is officially included by the Debian maintainers, but if you want to publish your own programs quickly and easily, you have a problem: You need to set up a third-party source containing the packages for the program you wrote. Future users of the program not only would need to be aware that this third-party package source even exists but would also have to add it to their own /etc/apt/sources.list file on the system before even thinking of installing. Because of all the work involved and the prerequisite knowledge needed, many users would probably prefer to do without the program.
Furthermore, distributing commercial software requires some extra steps for managing payments and licenses, and many users are now accustomed to the user-friendly presentation of app stores for Android and iPhone. They want to access the software from a central location at the press of a button and rate and comment on their choices. Graphic features, such as screenshots, help the user form a quick decision for or against a program. The appeal of such an app store spurred Raspbian to start preinstalling the Pi Store some time ago.
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