June 26, 2008: A 12 months after the first iPhone was launched, Apple sends an e-mail to builders calling for smartphone software program to be distributed within the forthcoming App Retailer.
Coders world wide greet the information with pleasure. They hurry to submit their iPhone apps and get in on the looming App Retailer gold rush. Many rake in small fortunes when the App Retailer goes dwell lower than a month later.
Apple opens iPhone App Retailer to third-party devs
The information that Apple would settle for apps to promote in its iPhone App Retailer generated an enormous quantity of enthusiasm. Apple unveiled the brand new enterprise on March 6, 2008, when the corporate launched its iPhone software program improvement equipment. The SDK gave devs the instruments to begin constructing native apps for the iPhone.
Inside Apple, execs contested this resolution hotly. Apple CEO Steve Jobs initially opposed the App Retailer. He anxious it might consequence within the iPhone being flooded with low-grade, third-party software program over which Apple would have little management.
Fortunately, Apple VP Phil Schiller and Apple board member Artwork Levinson finally persuaded Jobs to alter his thoughts. They wished to make the iPhone a generative platform relatively than a locked-down one.
Opening the iPhone to third-party software program, and launching the App Retailer for safe distribution, proved visionary. As an alternative of counting on one or two “killer apps” that might make the iPhone a must have machine, as instruments like VisiCalc had accomplished for the Apple II laptop, the App Retailer meant that each iPhone person might uncover their very own killer app.
No marvel co-founder Steve Wozniak referred to as the App Retailer Apple’s most vital invention. For a corporation that made the Apple II, the Mac, the iPod, iPhone and the Apple Watch, that’s excessive reward certainly.
Picture: Apple
The beginning pistol for builders’ gold rush
On June 26, 2008, Apple fired its beginning pistol by saying that it was now accepting iPhone apps for attainable inclusion within the App Retailer. The e-mail despatched to devs who had paid the $99 annual charge learn:
“Get began by downloading the eighth beta model of the iPhone OS, out there within the iPhone Dev Heart. With this new model of iPhone OS you possibly can conduct ultimate testing and put together your software for submission to the App Retailer. Apple is predicted to launch the ultimate iPhone 2.0 Firmware and App Retailer on July eleventh alongside the iPhone 3G launch. Builders might submit their functions now for availability within the App Retailer. Apple should approve all functions which are submitted.”
Purposes for the iPhone needed to be constructed on Macs, operating a brand new model of Apple’s built-in improvement setting, Xcode. Apple supplied the software program so builders might design iPhone-friendly interfaces, monitor iPhone reminiscence utilization, and even simulate the iPhone’s revolutionary touch-based interactions on their Macs.
Assembly a few of Apple’s extra arbitrary respectability pointers took many builders a very long time to familiarize yourself with. For individuals who did, nonetheless, rewards might be beneficiant.
App Retailer opens in July 2008 with 500 apps
By the point the App Retailer opened in July 2008, customers might obtain 500 third-party apps. About 25% of them value customers completely nothing. Throughout the App Retailer’s first 72 hours of opening, iPhone house owners downloaded 10 million apps.
The App Retailer opened up a complete new manner of distributing software program. It additionally shortly turned an vital income stream for Apple. The corporate stated the App Retailer ecosystem enabled $1.1 trillion in billings and gross sales in 2022.
At present, Apple’s tight management of the extremely profitable App Retailer is drawing scrutiny from antitrust regulators in the USA and overseas.
Modifications pressured upon Apple by the European Union’s Digital Markets Act introduced sweeping modifications to the App Retailer in 2024, together with sideloading of iPhone apps and various app marketplaces (at the least in Europe).
Nevertheless, many builders complained about Apple’s sophisticated plan for complying with the DMA guidelines. The European Union fined Apple $570 million in 2025 after discovering fault with Cupertino’s DMA compliance measures.
Have been you among the many first wave of App Retailer builders? What was the primary iPhone app you bear in mind downloading? Depart your feedback under.
