The App Stores 10th Birthday!

Did you know that the Apple App Store is now 10 years old? For this weeks Appy Friday, we thought we’d give you some of its highlights from the past decade to celebrate its birthday!

The App Store was introduced on July 10th 2008, and it launched with just 500 apps. The Apps Store’s release was revolutionary for Apple and helped to join together the process of finding an app you want, to buying it and then downloading it. Ten years on from its launch, it's hard to imagine phones without Apps and an App Store. Without it, we’d still all be using our smartphones for just phone calls, and maybe emails and internet browsing. So, here’s our list of some memorable milestones that the App Store has achieved in its first decade.

1.

On December 11th 2008 Apple introduced the charts in the App Store. This meant people could find the top apps of that week or month.

2.

On June 17, 2009, Apple released the iPhone OS 3.0 and along with this came the App Stores next feature which was in-app purchases. To start with Apple limited in-app purchases just to paid apps and games only. Initially they didn’t want consumers to download an app, and then find out they had to pay for upgrades, however, later on, this changed. And as we’ve seen, there are lots of free Apps out there, that now include upgrades paid for by in-app purchases.

3.

In 2010 with the release of the first iPad the App Store got another update, in that the App Store now featured iPad specific apps and universal apps. This included the first iBooks and Netflix apps.

4.

After the success of the iPhone and iPad App Store. On January 6th 2011 the Mac App Store was launched and in the first day alone there were around one million app downloads.

5.

In June 2015 Apple released iOS 7 and with this came a whole new look for the App Store along with automatic app updates.

6.

In October 2015 the App Store also came to watches and TV’s with the release of the Apple Watch and Apple TV.

7.

Now, in 2018 the original iOS App Store has over 2.2 million apps and over 130 billion downloads.

So, that was this weeks Appy Friday. The App Store has made such huge differences in the way we use our mobile phone and revolutionised smartphones for the better. So, happy 10th birthday App Store!