Raspberry Pi now has its own app store

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that the new Pi Store is open for business, providing a centralized source of software for users of its tiny PCs.

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Don't expect your Raspberry Pi to become the sixth device in your house to be running Angry Birds anytime soon, however -- at launch, the Pi Store only has 24 apps available, 23 of which are freeware. Titles range from productivity software like LibreOffice to development tools to games like Freeciv and Iridium Rising.

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In a blog post, the foundation urged community members to submit new content to the store. Users will be able to both sell their projects and distribute them for free, and "tip jar" functionality has been built in. Moreover, media content can be shared via the Pi Store, which should make it easier to distribute, for example, instructional videos.

"We hope that the Pi Store will provide young people with a way to share their creations with a wider audience, and maybe to a make a little pocket money along the way; as well as offering commercial developers an easy way to get their software seen by the Raspberry Pi community," the post said.

The foundation has been busy of late, releasing a new model of the Raspberry Pi late last month. The $25 Raspberry Pi Model A has half of the $35 Model B's 512MB of RAM, and lacks Ethernet capability. The group says, however, that this also has the effect of lowering power consumption, making the Model A attractive for projects in automation and robotics.

Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.

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