Computers have always run apps, as have PDAs and smartphones. For the first year of the iPhone’s life, the only apps available were those coded by Apple and bundled with iPhone OS. Steve Jobs finally relented , and the App Store opened, with 500 titles, on July 10, 2008.

This is Day 7 of 30 Days of iPhone, a look at the moments that shaped the smartphone era .

The iPhone Stepped Back To Let Others Lead The Marketing

Thanks to the single point of contact that every application had to use, the iPhone popularised the idea of the application store in a way no other smartphone manufacturer had attempted up to that point. Apple had taken a core functionality of personal computing since the dawn of the silicon age and turned it into an advantage they could sell.

And sell it they would. As 2009 began, Apple launched a promotional campaign that had immense cultural cut-through. Based on the wide range of apps available for the iPhone, which covered countless disciplines and areas of life, the marketing pushed the phone a little further back and brought third-party developers to the foreground.

The campaign? “ There’s An App For That. “

The Powerful Walled Garden Of iPhone Apps

With that phrase, the iPhone cut loose from being just a phone and moved toward a platform . This was more akin to a PlayStation or a Game Boy than a BlackBerry or a Windows Phone. Apple had taken the language of console gaming and its software lock-in and grafted real-world versatility onto the tech specs.

It also started to create a digital moat around its consumers as these apps would not run on other manufacturers’ hardware. The App Store was not just a cultural colossus; it was also a competitive edge that Apple has yet to cede .

This is Day 7 of 30 Days of iPhone. Yesterday we looked at the two-year delay before Apple brought Cut and Paste to the iPhone .