Just as Cydia is the dark mirror to the iOS App Store, Cydia will also be available on the Mac, according to Cydia developer Jay “Saurik” Freeman.

The announcement was made at last week’s 360|MacDev conference late last week. The point of Cydia on the Mac is a bit more nebulous on the Mac, which does not require jailbreaking to install custom, unapproved software, but Freeman envisions Cydia for Mac as being an alternative to the Mac App Store allowing things like demos and in-app payments that the Mac App Store will lack at launch.

More to the point, while Cydia on the Mac may not be needed now, Freeman envisions a day when Apple’s “draconian” policies in regards to censorship and API use begin to lock down OS X they same way they already have iOS. Providing developers a reliable, trustworthy outlet to distribute, promote and sell their software that isn’t the Mac App Store (or can be used for distribution in combination with the Mac App Store) is a good thing for the health of the whole Mac ecosystem.

As for Cydia on iOS, it’s still going strong: Freeman claims that almost 10 percent of all iOS users already use Cydia, averaging out to around 10 million devices at all. Imagine how big Cydia can get on a platform that doesn’t require a jailbreak first.