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The notion of app stores is expanding into the world of printers and HP has made some important strides in the past year after it announced its ePrint line of printers. The apps, combined with an Internet-accessible printer, are both actually pretty neat and I will show you what is involved in getting it all to work.

Not even a year after launching, the Mac App Store has logged its 100 millionth download, Apple reported yesterday. The app directory, which went live in January of this year, gives developers a place to sell applications for desktops and laptops running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and higher.

The Mac App Store takes the model Apple established with mobile and tablet apps for iOS and applies it to the desktop. Developers who opt to charge for apps get a 70% cut of the revenue, just as mobile developers do.

In theory, security researcher Charlie Miller was just trying to help. Apple's iOS is probed by malicious hackers constantly. They want a way in. To this point, Apple has been successful in keeping them out. It is one of the values of its iron fist rule over the App Store and the iOS user experience. Miller found a way in and planted a sleeper app in the App Store that he was going to use to present the security flaw at a conference in the coming weeks.

In planting the malicious app, Miller violated Apple terms of service and has been suspended from the iOS developer program for a year and his app has been removed. What the app did was get around the code signature requirement for iOS apps and allowed the app to connect to a command-and-control server to download additional code to the application.

While it's widely accepted that most 12-year-olds are comfortable using iPhone apps, it's not common that many 12-year-olds can code up their own. Meet Thomas Suarez, who has created two of his own. Both are distributed by Carrot Corp, the startup Thomas founded, but cannot legally own because he's under 18 (his father is listed as the company's president). Hundreds of downloads later, the prodigious sixth grader's choice for what to do next seems to be the only thing that fits into his age group's sensibilities: that's right, he spent his profits on an Xbox.

Mobile advertising platform Tapjoy is making a pivot with its consumer offerings to create a new application storefront that will showcase cross-platform mobile games tied to publisher virtual currency. Tapjoy, which has run afoul of Apple, with its pay-per-action service and advertising distribution model is adding the Tapjoy Games Web store to move horizontally in the industry and broaden is prospective customer base.

We confirmed the Tapjoy Games platform with a company spokesperson. The platform will be a hub for games across iOS, Android and HTML5 Web-based games that Tapjoy will tie together with virtual currency from the publishers. Can Tapjoy steer clear of Apple's App Store terms of service or will Tapjoy Games be the next in a line of ill-fated attempts from the company?

In terms of pure volume, the Android Market is rapidly catching up with the Apple App Store. Android has also been a step behind Apple. The iPhone was released in 2007, Android made its mass market debut in 2008. Apple just released iOS 5 while Android just put out version 4.0. From the application perspective, Apple has long maintained a large lead.

Mobile research firm Research2Guidance said in August that the Android Market would catch the App Store by the end of 2011. Today it released its September 2011 numbers to show that the Market has achieved half a million successful app submissions, compared to near 600,000 for Apple. Yet, even though an app has been published, that does not mean it stays in the store forever. Apple still has the advantage in application churn rate over Android.

There is some woe in the Android application ecosystem these days. Developers are searching for ways to increase monetization, engagement and time spent within apps so as to drive in-app purchases and advertisement click-through. Android currently has the lowest click-through rate of any of the major mobile OSes on the market. Many marketers look towards iOS users as the most loyal and engaged bunch of mobile app users.

Mobile marketing and engagement firm Fiksu would have you believe otherwise. In a new study, Fiksu claims that Android app users are actually more engaged than their iOS counterparts. Fiksu claims that Android users are more than twice as likely to open an app ten times or more. Creating loyal user bases is Fiksu's company mission. Are they full of hot air when it comes to Android?

Mike Lee has been involved in what are arguably some of the software industry's best applications. Delicious Library, Tap Tap Revenge, the Obama '08 app, and Apple's mobile store. Lee has a pretty good idea what users want, and spent about an hour at the St. Louis Strange Loop 2011 conference talking about product engineering and why it's best to imagine users as lazy, stupid, impatient and selfish. Did I mention he was wearing a Mariachi outfit?

There will be an apps store platform built into Windows 8, and there will be a self-service mechanism for developers to publish their wares and make money from them. That much, we know. We do not know yet how the licensing arrangements will be worked out with Microsoft - in other words, how much of a cut the company will get. This may not yet have been decided.

A demonstration of a very early prototype of the App Store was given to members of the press by Windows 8 program managers. We were given later glimpses of the new online storefront during the Day 1 keynote.

Apple's new subscription rules requiring publishers to fork over 30% of revenue generated from apps in the iTunes Store have claimed their biggest victim to date. As of last night, the iPhone and iPad apps for the Financial Times went missing from the App Store.

The new rules have not thrilled publishers, but reactions have been mixed. Some media companies, like Hulu and the New York Times, have decided to play along with Apple and offer a significant cut of their subscription revenue to the tech giant in exchange for access to millions of iTunes customers. Others, like Amazon, have opted to build HTML5 Web apps as a way to circumvent the new rules.