Jeff JohnsonMar 2

On Reddit there’s a 2008 audio interview with Steve Jobs, possibly for a Stanford student newspaper, about the recently opened App Store.

I didn’t feel like listening to all 45 minutes, but the beginning had interesting bits.

What strikes me is how TINY the App Store was at the time, only 1500 apps, and notably ~75% of them were upfront paid, not free.

I don’t think Jobs anticipated what the App Store would become in the future. For him it was just like iTunes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1rilbts/rare_steve_jobs_interview_about_the_app_store_in/

Show threadCodhisattva
@lapcatsoftware @nicklockwood as I recall in 2009 or 10 Steve was trying in vain to hype up web apps. He was excited about saving them to the home screen while everyone else was laughing at the success of the many fart apps.
Mar 3 at 1:10pmIvory for iOS
Show threadNick LockwoodMar 3

@Codhisattva @lapcatsoftware I think that was just a smokescreen he threw up until the native SDK was ready to ship

Although "full web on mobile" was a big part of the iPhone USP, and Apple did briefly flirt with being excited about HTML5 (Dashboard widgets, iBooks, iAds) before seemingly losing interest completely