An “App Store,” a digital marketplace for software applications or ‘apps’, has its roots in the commercial bulletin board services of the early 1980s. The evolution of App Stores has been marked by significant milestones, including the advent of the first software distribution catalog, the Electronic AppWrapper, and a variety of Linux distributions equipped with app repositories and package managers. The late 20th century saw the rise of mobile app stores such as BeDepot, Palmix, and i-mode. This development extended into the new millennium with the advent of smartphone app stores, culminating with Apple launching the App Store in 2008. In the present day, App Stores play a critical role in the digital landscape, serving as a conduit for developers to distribute their apps and for users to find and download them. Additionally, they function as a feedback loop between developers and users, with user reviews contributing to the enhancement of app quality.
An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app designed for use on a mobile device. Today apps are normally designed to run on a specific operating system—such as the contemporary iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux or Android—but in the past mobile carriers had their own portals for apps and related media content.
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