App Store

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! class="ios-lab" | Operator
| class="ios-val" | [[Apple]]
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! class="ios-lab" | Launched
| class="ios-val" | July 10, 2008 (with the [[iPhone 3G]]) — 500 apps
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! class="ios-lab" | Platforms
| class="ios-val" | [[iOS]] · [[iPadOS]] · [[macOS]] · [[watchOS]] · [[tvOS]] · [[visionOS]]
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! class="ios-lab" | Commission
| class="ios-val" | 30% standard · 15% small business and year-two subscriptions
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{{Apple Navbox}}

The App Store is [[Apple]]'s software marketplace — the storefront that launched with 500 apps in 2008 and created the modern app economy. "There's an app for that" became literal: millions of apps, billions of weekly visits, and an ecosystem Apple values in the trillions of dollars of billed commerce, all passing through the only gate [[iOS]] shipped with.

= History =

The Store arrived a year after the first [[iPhone]], reversing [[Steve Jobs]]'s web-apps-only stance, and its gold rush defined the smartphone era. In-app purchases (2009) and subscriptions built the business model; editorial curation replaced top-100 charts; and the Store spread to every Apple platform, [[Apple Vision Pro]] included. The Small Business Program (2021) halved the commission for most developers — under regulatory heat that never cooled.

= The gatekeeping wars =

The Store is the center of Apple's antitrust decade: Epic Games v. Apple ended with U.S. anti-steering injunctions that, by 2025, forced Apple to allow outside payment links; the EU's Digital Markets Act compelled alternative app marketplaces and browser engines in Europe; Japan, Korea, and others legislated their own openings. Apple's defense — security, privacy, one integrated experience — is also its business model, which is precisely the dispute.

= Position =

The App Store remains the ecosystem's economic engine and its most contested institution: the reason iPhone software feels safe and uniform, and the tollgate a generation of regulators, developers, and courts have pried at. However the rules shift, the Store's original achievement stands — it made software a mass consumer good.