To the Apple App Store, five years old today. If many argue that the launch of the iPhone in 2007 was the catalyst for the Mobile Marketing revolution, then the launch of the Apple App Store the following year can be seen as the rocket fuel that sent it into orbit.

Before the launch of the App Store, the iPhone was just a smart phone. Add apps, and overnight, it became a smartphone, helping millions of people around the world to run their lives.

If the traditional handset-makers had thrown up their hands in horror when they saw the iPhone, as their CEOs asked them: “Why didn’t we do that?” the launch of the App Store must have had them running for the hills, even if the early hits (remember iFart anyone?) didn’t look too promising. 

Since then, the App Store has succeeded beyond even Apple’s wildest dreams. 900,000 apps, 50bn downloads; the numbers are, quite simply, incredible. Of course, other device makers and other platforms, most notably Samsung and Android, have refused to let Apple have things their own way. But Apple was there first. 

Similarly, many commentators have criticised brands’ obsession with apps, and rightly so, pointing out that an app does not a mobile strategy make. But even as they lay into brands for their app-centric view of the world, these same commentators, you can bet your life, are firing up their mapping app to find their way to the next meeting, before launching a News app in the back of the cab to find out what’s going on in the world.

A year or so ago, the debate was raging: apps or HTML5 mobile sites, which would win out? It says a lot that you don’t hear much about that debate right now. If the days of apps are numbered, my guess is that, like most numbers relating to the world of apps, it’s likely to be a pretty big one.

David Murphy
Editor