The Apple App Store just turned 10, a year after the iPhone got into the double digits. That’s because the App Store was introduced with iOS v2.0 (actually, it was iPhone OS back then). So, this is a good moment to talk about how app stores came to be.
The one on the iPhone isn’t the pioneer, actually, but Apple is curiously connected to the first app store – the Electronic AppWrapper. EAW began life as a print catalog in 1991, but soon started including CDs. Each disc would have apps, music and other media which were encrypted – you had to pay to unlock them.
Electronic…