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App Store
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App Store
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| Operator | Apple |
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| Launched | July 10, 2008 (with the iPhone 3G) — 500 apps |
| Platforms | iOS · iPadOS · macOS · watchOS · tvOS · visionOS |
| Commission | 30% standard · 15% small business and year-two subscriptions |
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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.
1 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.
2 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.
3 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.
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