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Ironically, Steve Jobs strongly opposed the idea that iPhones could run third-party software – as Walter Isaacson wrote in his famous Jobs biography, the co-founder of Apple did not want foreigners to create applications for the iPhone. mess up, infect it with viruses, or pollute its integrity ", preferring developers instead to build robust web applications for mobile devices. Jobs finally changed their minds and, in doing so, helped bring to life a new mobile industry. Now, we navigate, read, call cars, pay bills, find jobs, waste time, get up and look for love with the help of the apps we carry with us every day, and to that moment will never change.
You do not need us to tell you that the past few years have seen the number of applications available explode, or that they are more sophisticated than ever before. (The number of PET apps available for download is, fortunately, far from what it was.) And Apple is always ready to talk about the financial impact of the App Store: Developers have collectively made more than $ 100 billion since its launch. After ten years, however, it is important to keep in mind how the Apple App Store has changed the way people thought about software. This was not just something to obsess for computer enthusiasts – downloading apps without a second thought was becoming part of the fabric of everyday life. The era of using your smartphone for literally everything began ten years ago today, and I would say that it is because of one thing: the l & # 39; 39; accessibility.
At the risk of appearing obvious, Apple did not invent the idea of a centralized system. place to download the software made to measure for your machine. One of the first commercial examples appeared in 1991 as a way to distribute and manage rights on Steve Jobs' NeXT computers – a niche market where there was one. However, for much of the 1990s and early 2000s, traditional PC users had to dig into new software the hard way.
Consider Windows. Finding a new handy software meant a lot of searching the web, reading forums and blindly installing .exes files. Portals like Download.com and Softpedia have certainly helped, but finding crucial software to solve a problem very frequently, it was like choosing a needle in a haystack. For a long time, Linux users probably had more ease since they could easily access software repositories to install not only complete packages, but also system settings and drivers with a little magic online control. These deposits have been helpful, of course, but could be difficult to use for novices and would not help the majority of people using more widely used operating systems.
Things have not improved much for basic cell phones and early smartphones. day. The type of software available for the first one was generally not worth remembering: the games were pretty basic and the limited power available meant that you often had trouble finding valuable third-party utilities. Operators were the big players in software distribution – they got into the action by building digital stores like Get It Now from Verizon (2002) and AT & T's MEdia Mall (2004), with the added advantage of being able
If you were using, say, a Windows Mobile device, there was a lot of free and paid software for you – you just needed to know where to look. Meanwhile, finding a boxed software for Palm Treo in a store was quite common, but you can also buy applications directly from Palm and either load from a PC or launch an installation directly from the Web browser of the phone. The results were generally worth the effort, but the process was generally less elegant.
And then came the iPhone and its App Store. Compared to the thousands of apps already available for Treos and Windows Mobile devices, the 500 applications from the App Store to launching seemed at best derisory. Since developers could not officially release software for the iPhone outside of the App Store, working in Apple's walled garden was the only way for most people to add new features to their iPhone. (Although it's a lot less popular than before, let's not forget that the jailbreak was a viable alternative for a long time.)
The process of searching and installing applications on the first smartphones were terribly similar to the traditional PCs. – you will sometimes find a lot of software in the same place, but otherwise, you will have to spend time looking elsewhere for the right tool. Apple's insistence to keep the software strictly within the walls of the App Store could have annoyed the first power users, but it has made sure that the ability to expand its devices with new features would only take a few clicks on a screen.
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