How the App Store changed the world Before the store

Apps weren’t part of the plan for the iPhone. They turned out to be its greatest legacy

Is it really just 10 years since all this began? On 10 July 2008, 18 months after the announcement of the iPhone, Apple changed the world again with the App Store, which let users browse third-party programs on their touchscreens and, mostly for the price of a sandwich or less, install and use them right away.

Remarkably, it was an innovation that Steve Jobs had to be talked into, and one that – as he’d predicted – brought as much controversy as surprise and delight. The App Store’s impact was immediate and profound.

The growth rate was exponential. By February 2009, an Apple advertising campaign neatly summed up the iPhone’s open-ended possibilities in what was already a self-explanatory slogan, soon to be repeated in the media until it passed into everyday conversation: ‘There’s an app for that.’

Hello, iPhone

There had been rumors of an Apple phone, and even a half-hearted attempt to launch one (with 2005’s Motorola Rokr E1), but when Steve Jobs strode to the side of the stage on 9 January 2007 and picked up the iPhone, it was probably the biggest and best surprise in any Apple keynote. The big multitouch screen, with its smooth response and new tricks, like rubber-band overscroll, was like nothing we’d ever experienced, and imaginations quickly turned to what could be done with it beyond Apple’s default apps.

Web apps

Developers could “write amazing apps for the iPhone today using the most modern web standards,” Steve Jobs announced at WWDC 2007. In other words, they could make glorified web pages. Over 1,000 web apps duly arrived, but developers wanted to address the iPhone’s hardware directly. By October, Apple had been persuaded. Steve explained: “We’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things: provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc.”

iPhone SDK

In June 2008, with version 2.0 of the iPhone OS (later renamed iOS), Apple released a software development kit allowing the creation of native apps. Anyone could pay $99 to join the iPhone Developer Program – though numbers were initially limited – and receive Apple’s Xcode tools (available on Mac only, naturally) to make apps that they would then submit for exclusive distribution on the App Store. On 10 July, the store opened for business, and customers could browse for apps either using iTunes on the Mac, or wirelessly on the iPhone itself.