July 10, 2008

App Store (Apple)

Apple opens the iPhone App Store through iTunes

The store opened on desktop iTunes a day before most customers had the phone software needed to run anything they bought.

Live on iTunes, not yet on the phone

Apple made the App Store available through iTunes 7.7 on Mac and PC on 10 July 2008, letting customers browse and acquire native third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The built-in, on-device App Store came a day later, with the iPhone 2.0 software update and the iPhone 3G rollout on 11 July.

Purchases ran through an iTunes account; once a device was running iPhone 2.0, apps could be downloaded directly over cellular networks or Wi-Fi, and desktop purchases could be synchronized by USB.

More than 500 at launch, more than 800 by Monday

The launch catalog held more than 500 native applications from hundreds of companies, spanning games and business, news, sports, health, reference and travel software. More than 125 of them were free.

The familiar round number comes from Apple's own tenth-anniversary history, which uses exactly 500; the 10 July release said more than 500.

By 14 July Apple reported more than 10 million downloads over the first weekend, from a catalog that had grown past 800 applications, including more than 200 free ones.

What the date does not carry

Apple did not invent electronic software distribution or the general idea of an on-device software catalog. What is dated here is the opening of one curated marketplace.

Android Market did not launch alongside it that September either. Google announced details in August 2008, but Android Market and the T-Mobile G1 reached users on 22 October 2008.

The App Store's later economic and cultural weight is background rather than something that had already happened on launch day.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

Apple's contemporaneous release precisely distinguishes the July 10 opening through iTunes 7.7 from the July 11 on-device availability through iPhone 2.0. Later Apple retrospectives consistently use July 10 as the App Store's launch date.
The title's '500 apps' is a rounded milestone. Apple's July 10 release said more than 500, while its tenth-anniversary history used exactly 500.