14 DAY TRIAL // The iTunes App Store may be one of the most commercially successful products Apple has churned out, and while many have rushed to copy it, no one can claim more rights to this invention than France Telecom.
Thom Holwerda has dug up an interesting tidbit regarding the history of app stores, and it seems the concept dates much farther back than 2008, when Apple introduced theirs.
Holwerda quotes jvross over at makegameswith.us, who was the one to connect the dots.
“In 1984 the government allowed developers to create services for the Minitel. The government took a 30% cut and passed the rest on to developers (sound familiar?) creating the world's first app store. From a user's perspective using apps on the Minitel was frictionless - you were just billed for what you used through your phone bill.
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How big was this app store? In the nineties it was pulling in over a billion USD a year! This is an astronomical sum when you consider France's population size. Though the crossover point is near, the Minitel in its lifetime paid out more to developers than Apple has to iOS developers to date. Companies would advertise their apps in the subway, on highway billboards, and on television.”