[a13o]

In the Gamecraft podcast, Mitch Lasky shares an anecdote about Apple asking his team to make apps for the iPod in 2005. Apple then calls them back in 2006 to make games for an 'App Store' on the iPod. Mitch claims this was all a trial run for how an app store would work on the iPhone. [1]

This interaction was with Tony Fadell who had been involved with an Apple smartphone since 2004. The iPhone App Store would launch in 2008. 'Thoughts on Flash' would be penned in 2010.

There's maybe not a straight line march from iPhone to App Store, but the right people had had years to think about how an App Store business would work. And even built a first draft implementation for the iPod. When they ultimately decided on that direction, they weren't starting from zero.

[1] ~29:40 https://gamecraftpod.com/blog/podcast/episode-3/

[philistine]

You’re kind of rewriting history there. App Stores were plentiful on other smartphones. Apple might have needed internal practice, but they knew how the business would work.

And Tony Fadell famously lost the job of making the iPhone. His idea was to use the OS used in the iPods. Jobs instead chose to minify macOS. Fadell then kind of lost his political grip at Apple and left afterwards.