The Once and Future App Store

"Can you reach the end of the app store?" Federico Viticci asks, recalling a time when you genuinely could—when every single app fit in a browseable list. That era lasted only a few months after the App Store launched in 2008. By 2026, the situation has flipped entirely: in the first half of this year alone, as many apps were submitted to the App Store as in all of 2025. For episode 500 of AppStories, John Voorhees and Federico Viticci stepped back to examine the App Store's past, its turbulent present, and the radically uncertain future ahead.

The Original Promise: No Barriers

The App Store's original genius, Voorhees argues, was not the apps themselves but the removal of barriers to entry. Before 2008, becoming a developer meant buying expensive tools—Microsoft Visual Basic for $400, or a Mac developer account that cost hundreds of dollars and came with WWDC sessions on VHS tapes. Apple swept all that away. Anyone with a Mac could download Xcode for free and start building. The only cost was a $99 annual fee to sell on the store.