A month after launch Steve Jobs said: Ive never seen anything like this in my career for software.
In less than a year, the Apple App Store marked its billionth download.
But for all the current obsession with app stores, there’s a strong argument that there’s nothing new about the idea at all.
Smartphone stores like Handmark, GetJar or Handango – doggedly selling not just games but currency converters and other productivity programmes – all have a good claim to have been there long before Apple. Nokia might say the same about Download. Even Vodafone about Live!
But however you define it, the inescapable fact is that no one got content sales right before Apple. Not really. The problem was always twofold. First, a fatal lack of access for suppliers. Look at the games sector. It now has three major publishers, the rest having departed due to an inability to get their salespeople in front of operators, and their products in front of the public.
This bottleneck put out the flame of creativity that all entertainment markets need to flourish, and which inevitably come from smaller teams.
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The second major hurdle was the appalling user experience. We’ve all heard the story of 32 clicks to download an application, of scary premium reverse billed SMS and of WAP billing landing pages with little clear explanation as to what they are.
What Apple did, of course, was solve both of these problems brilliantly.
Now, let’s not ignore the fact that Apple had substantial in-built advantages over its ‘competitors’ such as they existed. First, it had a tech-savvy demographic with an innate trust of the Apple brand.
But I’d argue even more significant was Apple’s pre-existing billing arrangement with its users. Virtually all iPhone users are existing iTunes users when they get their devices. The effect? No nervousness or confusion about entering into a payment scenario with the handset company – and 100 per cent credit card usage. It’s not something Motorola, say, could ever achieve.
And yet, the App Store’s huge success – one billion downloads, 37,000 apps – was itself the cause of some discontent. As the store became busier it became harder for users to navigate, and for products to get visibility.
The approvals process began to get longer and longer. Additionally, the store also attracted the attention of edgier products and Apple took flak for banning some (The Sun, Nine Inch Nails, various fart products) and allowing others (Baby Shaker).
Some of these issues may have been resolved by the new iPhone 3.0 software which, among other upgrades, allows developers to set ages restriction and lets parents switch on access controls. But the basic problem of discovery remains.
In the second year of the Apple App Store, we’ll see how the iPhone firm addresses this, and whether the incredible momentum of the concept can be sustained elsewhere in the market.
