The iPhone's App Store creates the mobile game industry
Apple opens a global storefront and a solo developer earns millions in months
Quick facts
- Launch
- 10 July 2008
- Initial apps available
- About 500
- Downloads (first 3 days)
- Over 10 million
- Notable early success
- Trism (Steve Demeter)
What happened
Apple released the iPhone in 2007 as a combined web browser, music player, and phone with a touchscreen and GPS, then opened the App Store on 10 July 2008 with about 500 third-party applications available, letting any developer sell software directly to iPhone and iPod touch owners without going through a mobile carrier or console publisher. Games were popular from the store's first hour; independent developer Steve Demeter built the tilt-controlled puzzle game Trism in about four months and earned roughly 250,000 dollars in profit within two months of release, a sum no publisher had been willing to fund when he pitched the idea beforehand. Users downloaded more than 10 million apps in the store's first three days.
Why it matters
The App Store let individual developers reach a global audience and get paid without a publisher's approval, seeding the free-to-play and mobile-first business models that now generate more global game revenue than console or PC gaming combined.
How we know
Apple's own newsroom retrospective on the App Store's tenth anniversary states the exact launch date and app count directly from the company; Variety's tenth-anniversary feature independently corroborates the story of Steve Demeter's Trism through his own on-record account.
Sources
- Apple Newsroom. The App Store turns 10 · Primary source (author-declared)apple.com · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Variety. iPhone App Store at 10: How it Changed Gaming, Mobile, Tech Forever · General sourcevariety.com · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineHistory of Video Games32 events · From a radar-lab curiosity to the biggest entertainment medium on EarthView all →