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A comment on Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by bredren on Friday June 19, 2020 @11:45AM (#23575584)
What was the earliest prior art resembling the Apple App Store? (Eg curation, 3rd party publishing with royalty cuts, one-click install.)

Was it Steam? Which first launched in 2003?

Did Apple debut objectively novel behavior that made the App Store a thing? Perhaps the install flow, or maybe the developer submission flow? (Which was admittedly awful for a number of years)

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by sergeykish on Friday June 19, 2020 @12:35PM (#23576068)
App Store was obvious as Linux user. In Windows and Symbian users has to search for installer. Out of commercial looks like Valve was first. I've never seen Windows Marketplace. Nokia took so long to make obvious thing - you have to review and sign application by Nokia (Symbian 9.1, 2005 [0]), but host by yourself.

Valve Steam - announced on March 22, 2002, released for beta testing the same day. [1]

Windows Marketplace - announced on July 12, 2004, launched on October 12, 2004 [2].

Nokia Ovi - announced on 29 August 2007, public beta on 28 August 2008 [3].

iPhone App Store - opened on July 10, 2008 [4].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Marketplace

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovi_(Nokia)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by zzapplezz on Friday June 19, 2020 @01:16PM (#23576604)
How could you forget the first? Brew!

Sept 2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_Runtime_Environment_for...

"an application development platform created by Qualcomm, originally for code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile phones, featuring third-party applications such as mobile games. It is offered in some feature phones (mostly with the similar specifications of a mid to high-end mobile phones) but not in smartphones. Developed in 1999, as a platform for wireless applications on CDMA-based mobile phones, it debuted in September 2001."

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by sergeykish on Friday June 19, 2020 @01:57PM (#23577092)
Wow, code signing. Not much CDMA in my country, J2ME here. Why limit to manufacturer? Third party store is even cooler, found one portal [1]:

> Downloads:

> Since Mar.31, 2004: 4,189,079

> Last week: 209,952

Possible trace:

> On-Device Portal technology emerged in 2000 [2]

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20050429230232/http://www.getjar....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-Device_Portal

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by bredren on Friday June 19, 2020 @04:36PM (#23578641)
Wow, I completely forgot about this one. I remember this on my flip phone. While a nice bit of nostalgia, IIRC the fees and royalties were very high and the administration to get something submitted was not in the same ballpark of the earliest Apple App Store.
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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by numpad0 on Friday June 19, 2020 @12:29PM (#23576016)
Symbian had mandatory signature checks and Nokia Signed/Symbian Signed program for privileged APIs, i-mode phones had “carrier official sites” program and Java app players to use with...

That said, the idea of iOS and App Store that you don’t ever sideload, browse from PC or web browser, or handle .ipa directly, as an integrated whole, do feel novel to me.

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by folmar on Friday June 19, 2020 @02:55PM (#23577724)
Wikipedia lists PocketGear from 1999: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_app_distributio...

If you drop the money a BBS is an old-man's appstore.

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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by nitrogen on Friday June 19, 2020 @12:35PM (#23576065)
Something similar but for music existed in pre-Vivendi MP3.com (whose founder later started Lindows which had an app store for Linux PCs in 2002), and a real world analog might be something like a consignment store.
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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by forgotmypw17 on Friday June 19, 2020 @10:59PM (#23581180)
Isn't app store just a package repository with added friction? Wouldn't something like the BSD ports tree or slackware be earliest?
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Re:Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores by nailer on Saturday June 20, 2020 @11:37AM (#23584515)
Click and run was an app store in 2002.
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