The iPhone App Store opened on July 10, 2008, with just 500 curated apps. It unlocked the iPhone’s power for countless third-party developers, but Apple strictly controlled access to preserve Steve Jobs’ clean vision of the smartphone.

This is Day 2 of 30 Days of iPhone, a look at the moments that shaped the smartphone era.

iPhone Web Apps Fail To Satisfy Native Software Demands

Apps were not available when the iPhone was launched, at least not in the sense of downloading compiled code to run on the hardware. Instead, Apple restricted the iPhone to running Web Apps ; Web 2.0 apps that attempted to mimic the look of the iOS UI while running inside the Safari web browser. Users could add shortcuts to the iPhone launcher to mimic the native apps, but the apps were limited and heavily sandboxed

According to Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs, “He [Jobs] didn’t want outsiders to create applications for the iPhone that could mess it up, infect it with viruses, or pollute its integrity.” Behind the scenes, SVP Art Levinson and SVP Phil Schiller were lobbying for app support. “I couldn’t imagine that we would create something as powerful as the iPhone and not empower developers to make lots of apps,” said Schiller. “I knew customers would love them.”

Internal Apple Lobbying Overcomes iPhone’s Native Application Ban

Jobs eventually relented thanks to a mix of internal pressure and poor adoption of Web Apps. An SDK was launched on March 6, 2008, and third-party developers got to work . AppleInsider reported on the key apps available as the App Store opened its digital doors: “Other notable free applications include AOL’s Instant Messaging application, Google’s Mobile Searching application, Six Apart’s TypePad blogging application, and a New York Times news application.”

Schiller’s suspicion about the popularity of native iPhone apps was correct. Less than two months after going online, Apple announced that the App Store had surpassed 100 million downloads , a number that kept growing, with The Business of Apps reporting 142.2 billion downloads in 2025 showing year-on-year growth of 3.1%.

Apple’s Control Over iPhone Apps Risked Regulatory Scrutiny

Just as it had with the iTunes Music Store, Apple corralled every iPhone application into a single point of distribution. Crucially, it was a single point over which Apple exerted sole control on what would and what would not run on consumers’ iPhones. Steve Jobs could maintain the integrity of his iPhone, but the repercussions of a closed App Store continue to impact Apple to this day.

This is Day 2 of 30 Days of iPhone. Yesterday we looked at the rise of the iPhone as it overtook the iPod .