The App Store turns five: A look back and forward
Five years ago, the App Store was born. A million apps, billions of dollars, and an uncountably high number of Angry Birds later, the store is unquestionably a smashing, unrivaled success. These days, customers download more than 800 apps every single second.
When the iPhone launched in 2007, Steve Jobs famously told developers that they could write “apps” for the device by creating Web apps. Developers mostly scoffed at that pronouncement—some went so far as to jailbreak their phones just so they could play around with creating software for the revolutionary new device.
Respite came in March 2008, when Apple laid out the roadmap for iOS development—including a software development kit (SDK) for programmers to write their own apps—and announced that it would provide a storefront through which developers could sell their software.
The App Store launched on July 10, 2008, with a whopping 552 apps on its virtual shelves; the most common prices were $1 and $10, and there were a mere 135 free apps.
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