Hynek Hampl Today marks exactly 5 years since the launch of the revolutionary App Store mobile application store. Let's take a look at the history of one digital revolution.
Performance
The first iPhone was introduced on January 9, 2007 and only supported applications directly from Apple. This caused negative reactions, which, however, were not heard until a full year and a half later. Steve Jobs was initially against the ability to install third-party applications. The App Store was officially launched on July 10, 2008 as another part of the iTunes Store. The day after, Apple released the iPhone 3G with the operating system iPhone OS (which is now referred to as iOS) 2.0, in which the App Store was already installed. Thus, third-party applications finally got the green light, which started another great success for Apple.
Steve Jobs once again bet on simplicity. The App Store was supposed to make the work of developers as easy as possible. They code the application using a ready-made SDK for the iPhone OS. Apple takes care of everything else (marketing, making the application available to interested parties...) and in the case of a paid application, everyone earns. From the paid application, the developers received 70% of the total profit, and Apple took the remaining 30%. And so it is until today.
Apple itself has prepared several applications. It motivated selected developers and showed the possibilities of use. The foundation stones of the App Store have been laid.
Revolutionary trade
Apple created a new way of distributing software. The person interested in the applications found everything in one place, paid simply via his account or iTunes Card, and was also sure that no malicious code would get into his phone. But it's not that simple for developers. The application goes through Apple's approval process, must meet certain requirements, and if it is not approved, it will not enter the digital store.
The App Store also made it possible to install apps directly on your phone, so you didn't have to copy apps from your computer, which you could, thanks to the App Store in iTunes. The user just had the application installed and didn't care about anything else. In no time, the application was ready to use. Simplicity comes first. And another simple matter was the updates. The developer released an update to the application, the user saw a notification on the App Store icon, and after reading the changes in the new version of the application, you already downloaded it. And so it works to this day. Only in September of this year will iOS 7 change it slightly, thanks to automatic updates. And the most important thing for developers? They paid no fees, everything was taken care of by Apple. It was a really great move.
Microsoft, which came up with a similar deal much later, it even paid the first 10 developers to put an app on the Windows Store. He was starting from scratch, when the App Store was already the market leader, and the Android market (Google Play) was second to him very well, it was very difficult. So Microsoft had to somehow motivate developers to start competing with the App Store and Google Play.
Steve Jobs introduces the App Store in 2008:
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There's an App for that
And how did the App Store do after its launch? In just the first 3 days, the number of app downloads reached 10 million. Developers could use all the strengths of the iPhone to create great apps. A 3,5″ touch screen, accelerometer, GPS and graphics with a 3D chip allowed developers to start building legends using apps – the iPhone and the App Store. The smartphone has become a powerful tool in just a few years. Game console, mobile office, camcorder, camera, GPS navigation and more, all in one small box. And I'm not just talking about the iPhone as a smartphone. The App Store has a lot of credit for that. After all, already in 2009, Apple was not afraid to launch a well-known advertisement There's an App for that, which showed that you could have an app for virtually anything on an iPhone.
Development
When the App Store first launched, there were only 552 apps available. At the time, the iPad wasn't on store shelves yet, so there were only apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. In the rest of 2008, developers have already created 14 applications. A year later, it was a much bigger jump, with a total of 479 applications. By 113, a whopping 482 apps were created and 2012 new developers joined the App Store this year (686). At the moment (June 044) there are more than 2012 applications on the App Store. Of these, over 95 apps are for iPad only. And the numbers keep growing.
If we talk about the number of downloads, small numbers are not waiting for us either. However, we will only mention the larger ones. It took several years to reach the App Store 25 billion downloadsand. It happened on March 3, 2012. The next milestone sees a huge increase in the user base and applications. After more than a year, on May 16, 2013, the App Store surpassed twice the previous record. Unbelievable 50 billion downloads.
It is also interesting to observe the development of the share of applications that were free and paid. In the 5 years since the opening of the virtual app store, the situation has changed significantly. While shortly after launch the distribution was 26% of all free apps and 74% paid apps, over the following years the share shifted in favor of free apps. This was also helped by the fact that Apple introduced In-App purchases at the end of 2009, which is why many apps were free, but you paid for other content directly in the app. Now, in 2013, the breakdown is as follows: 66% of all apps are free and 34% of apps are paid. Compared to 2009, this is a big change. Do you think this is wrong? Did it affect revenue in any way? Error.
Money
The App Store is a gold mine for both developers and Apple. In total, Apple paid out $10 billion to developers for apps, half of which was in the last year. At the moment, the only bigger competition is the Google Play store, which is growing, but still does not have Apple in terms of profits. The largest virtual market is still the one in the USA, and the company Distimo also did its research there. The daily income from the Top 200 apps in Google Play is $1,1 million, while the Top 200 apps in the App Store have a whopping $5,1 million in daily income! That's almost five times the revenue from Google Play. Of course, Google is rising fast and will surely cut into Apple's shares gradually. It is also important to add that the revenue at the App Store is from iPhone and iPad applications together, which significantly increases revenue.
Gift
And the best for users. On the occasion of the 5 year anniversary of the existence of the App Store, Apple is giving away a really great one free apps and games, which we are already talking about they wrote. Among them you will find, for example, Infinity Blade II, Tiny Wings, Day One diary and others.
Nice article
There's an iPhone 2G on top, god -_-
And iPhone OS 2, seriously?
Seriously. At least find it on the wiki.