Whenever you install a new application from the Mac App Store, that application's icon is automatically added to the Dock. (There's one confusing exception here: If you're installing a program onto an additional Mac using the Purchases screen of the Mac App Store, the app's icon added to the Dock.) This is great for new Mac users, who may not yet know where applications reside or how to add a program to the Dock--their new software is right there, ready for use. But many non-novice Mac users are quite particular about the Dock and which programs get access to its precious real estate. The Mac App Store should offer a simple preference for whether or not newly purchased programs are automatically added to the Dock. It could be a blanket preference or, as one editor suggested, the store could ask you, each time you purchase an application, if you want that particular application added to the Dock.

Of course, we could come up with more than 10 additions and enhancements to the Mac App Store that we hope Apple implements at some point. For example, we'd love a way to choose the default installation location; tabbed App Store browsing; the ability to run purchased apps on pre-10.6.6 systems if those apps otherwise don't require 10.6.6; a way to keep iTunes Store credit and Mac App Store credit separate without having to set up different accounts; and a Genius feature that could recommend software for enhancing or supplementing software you've already purchased. But these are more "it would be nice to have" items--our list of 10 features are ones that would make the Mac App Store feel a whole lot less like a 1.0 product.

We're looking forward to seeing the Mac App Store mature the way the original App Store has. We just hope it does so a little more quickly.