App Store (iOS)

History

The general concept of an app store as a distribution platform for software goes back to the 1990s. In 2003, Apple launched iTunes Music Store for digital media.

The iPhone App Store opened on July 10, 2008, via an update to iTunes. It allowed Apple to completely control third-party apps for the first time, and to introduce a charge on top of the basic cost of every app. On July 11, the iPhone 3G was launched and came pre-loaded with iOS 2.0.1 with App Store support; new iOS 2.0.1 firmware for iPhone and iPod Touch was also made available via iTunes. As of February 10, 2012, there are at least 1,100,000+ third-party apps officially available on App Store.

As of January 18, 2011, App Store had over 9.9 billion downloads, which was announced via the company's "10 Billion App Countdown". At 10:26 am GMT on Saturday, January 22, 2011, the 10 billionth app was downloaded from Apple App Store. As of July 2011, 200 million iOS users downloaded over 15 billion apps from its App Store.

The mean revenue per application is estimated to be US$8,700, although data is not publicly available. In 2015, it was estimated 1,260 developers would make at least $1 million. As of May 2011, Apple approved its 500,000th app and 37 percent of all apps are free with an average price of $3.64. The distribution of price follows a power law distribution (the Zipf–Mandelbrot law). Prices can be freely chosen by sellers at multiples of US$1 minus 1 cent (99¢, $1.99, and so on).

After the success of Apple's App Store and the launch of similar services by its competitors, the term "app store" has been adopted to refer to any similar service for mobile devices. However, Apple applied for a U.S. trademark on the term App Store in 2008 which was tentatively approved in 2011. Later, in June 2011, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who was presiding over Apple's case against Amazon, said she would "probably" deny Apple's motion that seeks to bar the Web retailer from using the "App Store" name. Later on July 6, Apple was denied preliminary injunction against Amazon's Appstore by a federal judge.

The term app has become a popular buzzword; in January 2011, app was awarded the honor of being 2010's "Word of the Year" by the American Dialect Society. Apple does not hold a trademark on, or claim exclusive rights to the term app, which has been used as shorthand for "application" since at least the mid-1990s and in product names since at least 2002, for example Google Apps (introduced in 2006).

On October 20, 2010, Apple announced Mac App Store which was eventually launched on January 6, 2011. It is similar to the one for iOS devices, only it has applications designed for Mac computers. Mac App Store is only accessible by using Mac OS X 10.6.6 "Snow Leopard" or later.

App Store is accessible from the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad via an iOS application by the same name. It is also the only way to directly download native applications onto an iOS device without jailbreaking the device. Web applications can be installed on these devices, bypassing App Store entirely, but they tend to have inferior functionality. The store is also accessible through iTunes, and then on any operating system for which iTunes is provided (macOS and Windows).

In February 2011, Apple announced its new subscription-based service, which was to allow publishers the freedom to set the length and price of subscriptions. Previously, new magazine or news releases were sold on a per release basis. The new service enabled publishers to sell content directly through their apps, allowing users to receive new content over specified periods of time. Furthermore, Apple was to allow publishers to not only distribute and/or sell their applications from iTunes, where revenues would continue to be shared (70 percent for the publisher, 30 percent for Apple), but also allow them to distribute their subscriptions directly from their websites, where no revenue would be shared with Apple.

During Apple's 2012 Worldwide Developer's Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that App Store had 400 million accounts with registered credit cards, 650,000 available apps to download as well as "An astounding 30 billion apps" downloaded from the app store.

Following the launch of the iPhone 5, Apple updated the UI of the App Store, as well as the iTunes Store and iBookstore, in iOS 6. This was the first major overhaul since App Store launch in 2008.

On January 7, 2013, Apple announced that there have been over 40 billion apps downloaded from their iOS App Store, with almost half of those downloads coming in 2012.

On February 1, 2013, Apple informed developers that they could begin using appstore.com for links to their apps.

In September 2013, Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference the addition of a Kids category to App Store alongside the launch of iOS 7. The category is broken down by age range and apps aimed at the under-13 set are required to follow the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requirements.

As of the end of 2013, App Store users spent over $10 billion in 2013, users downloaded almost three billion apps in December 2014 making it the most successful month in App Store history, and App Store developers have earned over $15 billion since the inception of the App Store.

On November 17, 2014, Apple updated App Store so that all apps that have no charge to download are labeled "GET" instead of the previous "FREE" and apps that include microtransactions include smaller subtext that says "In-App Purchases".

In June 2015, Apple announced there have been over 100 billion app downloads from App Store.

In September 2015, it was announced that there were apps that used XcodeGhost, malicious code from another party. Some of the bigger apps that had the code are Angry Birds 2, CamCard, TinyDeal.com, among others. Apple has stated that it will make the Xcode easier to download by allowing local servers to be established that will allow app developers to access the Xcode more easily.

On December 17, 2015, responsibility for overseeing App Store was given to Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. Previously App Store was led by Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

In June 2016, Apple announced that there were 2 million apps available in App Store, and apps had collectively been downloaded 130 billion times since App Store's launch in 2008, earning app developers nearly $50 billion in revenue.

In 2016, Apple rolled out major changes to App Store, including ads in search results and a new app subscription model. The subscription model saw the firmly established 70/30 revenue split between developers (who have traditionally received 70% of money earned from purchases) and Apple (which has traditionally earned 30%) change into a new 85/15 revenue split between developers and Apple if a user stays subscribed to the developer's app for a year.

On September 1, 2016, Apple announced that starting September 7, it would be removing old apps that do not function as intended or that don't follow current review guidelines. Developers will be warned and given 30 days to update their apps, but apps that crash on startup will be removed immediately. Additionally, app names registered by developers cannot exceed 50 characters, in an attempt to stop developers from inserting long descriptions or irrelevant terms in app names to improve the app's ranking in App Store search results. App intelligence firm Sensor Tower revealed in November 2016 that Apple, as promised from its September announcement of removing old apps, had removed 47,300 apps from App Store in October 2016, a 238 percent increase of its prior number of average monthly app removals.

App data and insights analyst company App Annie released a report in October 2016, revealing that China had now overtaken the United States as Apple's biggest market in App Store revenue; Chinese users spent $1.7 billion vs. approximately $1.5 billion by American users.

Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller tweeted in December 2016 that November marked the record of highest monthly App Store sales.

In January 2017, Apple published a press release, announcing several facts. January 1, 2017 was App Store's "busiest day ever", generating $240 million. App developers earned $20 billions in 2016, and there are 2.2 million apps available in the store.

iOS SDK

The Software Development Kit for iPhone OS was announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6, 2008. The SDK allows developers running Mac OS X 10.5.4 or higher on an Intel Mac to create applications using Xcode that will natively run on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. A beta version was released after the event and a final version was released in July 2008 alongside the iPhone 3G. As of January 2, the latest iOS SDK is for iOS 9.

This major Roadmap event (coupled with a large distribution program for 3rd-party developers), later became known as the iPhone Developer Program, which currently offers two distribution tracks for 3rd-party developers: Standard, and Enterprise.

Applications distributed through the standard program can be sold exclusively through the iTunes Store on Mac and Windows, or on App Store on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Developers who publish their applications on App Store will receive 70 percent of sales revenue, and will not have to pay any distribution costs for the application. However, an annual fee is required to use the iPhone SDK and upload applications to the store.

Applications developed through the enterprise program, officially the "iOS Developer Enterprise Program" (iDEP), are exclusively for institutional use and do not get published on App Store. This allows corporations, non-profits and government agencies to develop proprietary "in-house" applications not for public release. The enterprise program was updated September 13, 2010, to allow any organization with a DUNS number to join. Prior to this date, only organizations with 500 or more employees could join the enterprise program.

To run an application on the iPhone, the application must be signed. This signed certificate is only granted by Apple after the developer has first developed the software through either the US$99/year Standard package or the US$299/year Enterprise package with the iOS SDK. However, after the release of Xcode 7 and iOS 9, apple allows developers to sign their applications for free. But, it is only possible to put an app on the app store once you are part of the development program.

Number of iOS applications

On July 10, 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs told USA Today that App Store contained 500 third-party applications for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, and of these 25 percent were free. These third party applications range from business to game applications, entertainment to educational applications, and many more applications available for free or for sale. On July 11, 2008 the store opened, allowing users to buy applications and transfer them to an or iPod Touch with the iPhone 2.0 software update, which became available through iTunes on the same day. Ten million applications were downloaded the first weekend.

On January 16, 2009, Apple announced on its website that 500 million applications had been downloaded. The billionth application was downloaded on April 23, 2009. On March 3, 2012, the number of apps downloaded reached 25 billion. On June 8, 2015, Apple announced that App Store had crossed 100 billion downloads.

On July 7, 2011, Apple announced that over 15 billion apps had been downloaded from the iOS app store. But, micro level information on the number of downloads of each ranked application has not been made available. To help app producers with their marketing effort and help researchers in better understanding the Apple's iOS app store, a 2011 research study tried to estimate the model that converts the app rank to daily downloads. Researchers Garg and Telang from Carnegie Mellon University found that the app downloads follow a Pareto distribution and can be estimated using the equations:

iPad_app_downloads = 9,525 * paid_app_rank^−0.903 iPhone_app_downloads = 52,511 * paid_app_rank^−0.944

This claim has not been verified by Apple or any other market research organization.

Number of iPad applications

The iPad launched in April 2010 with over 3,000 applications natively designed for it. By July 2011, 16 months after the release, there were over 100,000 apps available at App Store designed specifically for the device.

Most downloaded apps

In April 2009, Apple announced the apps which had the most number of downloads since the store was launched. Among paid apps, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D was ranked first followed by Koi Pond, and among free apps Facebook was ranked first followed by Google Earth. In May 2012, the most downloaded paid app was Angry Birds followed by Doodle Jump and most downloaded free app was Clash of Clans followed by Skype. In May 2013, the most downloaded paid app was Angry Birds followed by Fruit Ninja and most downloaded free app was Facebook followed by Pandora Radio.

These are the top ten most downloaded iPhone and iPad apps of July 2016:

Application ratings

Apple rates applications worldwide based on their content, and determines the age group for which each is appropriate. According to the iPhone OS 3.0 launch event, the iPhone will allow blocking of objectionable apps in the iPhone's settings. The following are the ratings that Apple has detailed:

App approval process

Applications are subject to approval by Apple, as outlined in the SDK agreement, for basic reliability testing and other analysis. Applications may still be distributed "ad-hoc" if they are rejected, by the author manually submitting a request to Apple to license the application to individual iPhones, although Apple may withdraw the ability for authors to do this at a later date.

As of 2013, Apple employed mostly static analysis for their app review process, which means that dynamic code reassembly techniques could defeat the review process.

Enterprise App Stores

Because Apple's Mobile App Store is for consumers, companies are unable to distribute in-house apps on App Store. Under Apple's iOS Developer Enterprise Program companies can publish in-house apps to "employees" using an Enterprise App Store.

Apple defines "employees" to include employees and contractors of a company or organization. In September 2012, Apple allowed the definition of "employee" to include faculty, staff and students of an educational institution, as well as credentialed physicians, referring physicians and clinicians.

Apps published with Apple's iOS Developer Enterprise Program are still subject to Apple's control via the controversial kill switch, where Apple can revoke a publisher's digital certificate and thereby "kill" the app on user devices. However, there is no evidence that this has been done in the enterprise environment.

Non-disclosure agreements (NDA) have always forbidden developers from publishing the content of their rejection notices, but Apple has now started labeling their rejection letters with an NDA warning THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE. Apple later changed the NDA citing that "it has created too much of a burden on developers" but they did not reverse the decision to forbid publication of rejection notices. Some applications are not available outside US App Store at the request of the developer. Since so many developers have published rejection emails Apple now most often call submitters to verbally tell them their rejection notice.

In addition, Apple has removed software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) from App Store after complaints from one of the program's developers, claiming that App Store's terms of service are incompatible with the GPL.

Controversial apps

On several occasions apps that provide functionality unwanted by Apple have appeared on App Store. Shortly after their true functionality is publicized they are removed as part of the approval process.

In November 2012, Boyfriend Maker, a dating sim game, was removed due to "reports of references to violent sexual acts and paedophilia" which were inappropriate to Boyfriend Maker's age rating of 4+. A revised version called Boyfriend Maker Plus was approved by Apple in April 2013.

On March 11, 2013, HiddenApps was approved and appeared in App Store. This App provided access to developer diagnostic menus, allowed for stock Apps to be hidden and enabled an opt-out feature for iAds, Apple's developer driven advertisement system.

In April 2013, Apple removed AppGratis from iOS App Store for violation of clauses 2.25 and 5.6 in the developer agreement.

On November 4, 2014, Apple removed the marijuana social networking app, MassRoots, from the iOS app store because it "encourage[d] excessive consumption of alcohol or illegal substances.” On February 13, 2015, MassRoots was reintroduced into the iOS app store after Apple changed its enforcement guidelines to allow cannabis social apps in the 23 states where it is legal.

Implementation and limitations in countries

Although Apple envisions App Store to be a global product, in reality its market is restricted to national boundaries. In other words, there are potentially as many distinct App Stores as are countries in the world - even within the European Union which has a single common market, each country has its own App Store. Users have accounts that are in effect limited to their own country and restrictions based on national legislation apply to each national App Store. Apps available on, say, the German App Store, may not be available on the French App Store and French App Store users cannot make purchases from the German App Store. Also attempting to use a national App Store from a different country may cause problems: Apple support warns that "one of the risks of creating a German account while you are in Greece is, our system may able to detect it and it may put restrictions on your account (German) that will prevent you from using the iTunes Store". Also developers may cause limitations like e.g., American developers who caused restriction for their software to available only in US country.

Similar services for other devices

Other app stores are available for mobile devices, some provided by the device manufacturer and some independent of them. Google Play (formerly Android Market) is used in conjunction with Google's Android certified devices. Microsoft operates the Windows Phone Store, an app store for their Windows Phone platform and also the Windows Store for Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs and tablets. Amazon.com has the Amazon Appstore for use with any Android-compatible device. BlackBerry has an application store called BlackBerry World. BlackBerry does not restrict BlackBerry 10 users to only its services, so those users may use the Amazon Appstore.

Palm published the Palm Software Store for Palm devices and released the App Catalog for webOS. Nokia released The "Ovi Store", which replaced its earlier "Download!" application that predated App Store, for its S60 and S40 based mobile devices. Samsung has created Samsung Apps, primarily to cater for its own Bada OS, but also with support for certain other Samsung devices.

The Nintendo DSi is able to connect to an online store called the "DSi Shop", along with Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) and PlayStation Vita being able to connect to PlayStation Store to download games. The Nintendo 3DS and Wii U have their own application distribution platform called the Nintendo eShop.