It is hard to believe now, with the way the App Store has cultivated the world in past years that it is only four years old. Thats it. The App Store, the one where hundreds of businesses have started, billions of apps are downloaded, thousands of individual apps have been uploaded and millions of people from around the world have downloaded apps from, is only four years old. Thats all Apple needed to change the world in a revolutionary way, introduce three devices and a worldwide phenomenon where “Download from the App Store” is as common as “Google it”. Even Apple haters wont argue the fact about two things, 1. that the App Store has changed how we work and 2. it is a global phenomenon. They may argue that Android App Store (Google Play) or the Blackberry App Store (snicker snicker) is better. Let’s not forget though, Apple came first. Sure, there were other phones before Apple, but none quite as revolutionary. And then, as Microsoft did with the Mac, Android only (poorly) copied Apple. Apple put forward the best platform it possibly could produce, and they did. It is the best platform. iOS and the App Store are very well integrated. We are lucky that Steve Jobs decided to produce an App Store because he almost didn’t.

Thats right, Steve Jobs almost didn’t produce an App Store and any Apple follower four years ago should know this. Steve once said that he wanted developers to develop apps for Safari. He didn’t want to build a platform so third-parties could develop actual apps. However, in the end, he was convinced the App Store was the right thing to do, and it sure was. The App Store started with 500 apps it now has 650,000. It is available in almost 200 countries, the most for any App Store. It has seen over 25,000,000,000 downloads with a majority of these downloads being games.

Games on the App Store have created the biggest phenomenon on the App Store and has become as popular or even more popular than console gaming. More and more people are mobile and many don’t have time to be home playing video games on a console. So people take their iPhone or iPad on the go and play games on there. The games on the App Store may very well become the future of games and may even fade out consoles completely once the technology on iOS devices improves further. The iPhone has about as good as a playing value as the PS2 (sometimes in certain cases, such as Infinity Blade, the PS3 in terms of graphics). The iPad is even better with the large Retina Display.

While games are the ones that create the biggest phenomenon, they are not the ones the create a difference. There are many apps out there that bring communities or people together, there are some that make differences in the world. Apps make differences in peoples lives. There are many that bring us closer together and unite us. There are apps that improve peoples ability to speak such as those who have autism, there are apps that help the blind see and the deaf hear. Of course, this isn’t literal but it definitely helps people who are blind or deaf. Apps have one of the biggest impacts on humanity right now. And Apple is the sole leader in that.

So with that, I sign off with a final note. Happy birthday App Store, and thank you for bringing us closer together, for making our world better and just for providing us entertainment. Thank you Apple and the App Store for everything you’ve done. Thank you. You have made our lives better.

Thanks for reading,

Joe