Apps. Gerard Goggin

There had already been a vociferous reaction to iPhone’s locked-down ecosystem from tech communities, fans, hackers, and highly literate users, and it was publicized through practices and materials that encouraged the “jailbreaking” of iPhones—that is, the unauthorized removal of Apple’s software restrictions (Goggin, 2009; Lee & Soon, 2017). Unlike PCs and most other mobile phones, Apple computers and then mobile devices, starting with iPods, had been deliberately engineered to allow official uses and servicing authorized by Apple—security by design, warranty and sales contracts, copyright, patents, and other forms of intellectual property protection (Miller, 2012; Swanson, 2010; Thiel, 2016). This gave rise to the creation of low-cost netbook computers that could run Apple software, such as the so-called MacBook nano. This “hackintosh” project was started around 2005 by software developers who paid attention first to Apple computers and then to iPhone (Magaudda, 2010), and it led to a phenomenon that Paolo Magaudda terms “the consumerization of hacking practices” (Magaudda, 2012, p. 4). In any case, the jailbreaking of iPhones in particular has been a newsworthy if risky pastime ever since (Timberg, 2013; Hern, 2020c). At the very least, the jailbreaking of iPhones, especially as a way to circumvent the compulsory routing through the Apple App Store, raises significant competition policy, “net neutrality” (Selwyn & Golding, 2010, pp. 110–111), and digital rights issues (Cooke, 2020). Jailbreaking is a long-term issue for the users of many other smartphone and app ecosystems and for their manufacturers, who are often displeased with default or pre-installed software (this is sometimes termed “bloatware”) (Cavusoglu et al., 2020). More on this shortly.

      After months of considerable backlash from software developers, on July 10, 2008, Apple launched its App Store. It announced a software developer kit (SDK) for native iPhone apps in October 2007 and released it on March 6, 2008, claiming 100,000 downloads in the first four days and topping 250,000 by early June (Apple, 2008a, 2008b). Later that month Jobs unveiled “what we call the app store” (Jobs, 2008, 00:39). As an “exclusive way to distribute iPhone applications,” Jobs suggested that most users would download apps “over the air, right to the iPhone” (2:25). He laid out a “business deal” whereby developers would pick a price, then Apple would take 30 percent of the revenue (for hosting the credit card and payment systems), and developers would take 70 percent (3:25). This is the basic structure of Apple’s deal with developers, and it has held firm over the intervening years, though it’s coming under increasing challenge. In August 2020, for instance, Apple kicked Epic Games, the owner of the popular game Fortnite, off its app store, on the grounds that it allowed players to purchase in-game items directly and hence avoided giving Apple its 30 percent cut. Epic responded with a blistering video and social media campaign.

So we can see that Apple has been remarkably successful at imprinting the basic idea, architecture, and business model of apps early in the day. Nevertheless, we can be rightfully skeptical of Apple’s framing and design of apps and of its app store, as many have been. Let us look at the main alternative player to see how it sought to imagine and construct the universe of apps: Android, owned by Google.

      Android is an open-source Linux-based software stack that includes a core set of system apps for email, SMS, calendars, contacts, Internet browsing, and other operations (Android, 2020a). Android Inc. began in 2003, in Palo Alto, as a startup led by Andy Rubin. Rubin was interested in developing an OS for digital cameras, but then diverted Android Inc. to focus on smartphones (de Looper, 2019). Google acquired Android in 2005 and announced the development of its Android OS in 2007, after partnering with handset manufacturers and carriers such as Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, HTC, and T-Mobile.

Google controls Android (Goggin, 2012), which it describes as “an open source operating system for mobile devices and a corresponding open source project led by Google” (Google, 2020). Android emphasizes that “apps included with the platform have no special status among the apps the user chooses to install” (Android, 2020a). Users can install and use third-party apps, and developers, for their part, can use the system’s app capabilities as building blocks for their own apps. The early and continuing success of Android is often credited to this approach: “A significant factor in Android’s rapid adoption is that Google freely licensed the operating system under open-source terms, enabling a wide range of handset makers to enter the high-end smartphone market without having to develop their own OS” (Pon et al., 2014, p. 982). To provide signature look, feel, and core functionality across the various devices from the wide range of manufacturers that rely upon Android, Google encourages the vendor to enroll in its compatibility program. If the device complies with the Android Compability Definition Document and passes the Compatibility Test Suite, it means that “Android apps in the ecosystem provide a consistent experience when running on your device” (Android, 2020b). Once they secure the Android compatibility of their device, firms are also encouraged to gain a separate license to run Google mobile services on top of the Android OS (Android, 2020b).

      Android has firmly established its global dominance and its place as the major alternative to Apple’s view of the apps work. However, it is important to note that there do exist many other kinds of app stores. In chapter 3 we’ll look at the teeming world of Chinese app stores, which have managed to relegate Apple and Google to minor positions. Before 2008, too, there were a wide range of mobile data and content portals, websites, services providers, and so on, as we have seen. Some of these, such as Nokia or Vodafone World, were leaders and were more well known. These mobile equipment vendors and network operators were especially in the ascendancy in a diverse and fragmented market. In the transition, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market battled to establish themselves in the face of well-capitalized and savvy contenders. The companies that entered the list of the “app store wars” included Blackberry World (launched in April 2009), Nokia’s Ovi, Windows Marketplace, Palm Catalog, Sony App Store, and Samsung Galaxy Store.

A notable new entrant from this period that has survived is Amazon. Amazon launched its app store in 2011, offering apps for Android devices and the Kindle Fire. When Amazon launched its app store, Apple filed a suit, alleging trademark infringement and other complaints. (Apple had applied to register “app store” as a trademark, seeking to gain exclusive use of the term, but this was opposed by Microsoft.) In January 2013, the District Court in California agreed with Amazon, determining that Apple had not provided evidence that consumers associated the name “app store” with any specific qualities of Apple as a company (Hudson, 2013). Rivalry between the two companies moved on to other fronts, centering on revenue splits and terms of use for Amazon’s iOS app. In legal battles with Nokia in 2009, Apple again asserted patent rights over its app store, but this was a minor element in an extensive series of legal set pieces (Kolakowski, 2010) and of technology and business strategies that played out between these two companies (Cuthbertson et al., 2015; Tuunainen et al., 2011). By 2014, Apple and Google had largely cemented their dominance of app stores outside China. Because companies found it difficult to directly bypass app stores (though not for want of trying, as in Epic’s Battle Royale of 2020), the main route—as followed by companies such as Spotify, Netflix, Uber, and many others—was building a market presence, integration of services, and take-up of the app itself (Fung, 2019).

Conclusion: “There’s an App for That”

      App stores mean little without the apps themselves. The sheer number of apps launched in the 2008–2013 period was extraordinary.

In the vanguard of apps, users were young users—a feature captured by the label “the app generation” (Gardner & Davis, 2013). While we need to be wary of the recurrent rhetoric of generations and technology (Goggin & Crawford, 2011) as well as of the diversity of the people gathered under the banner of “youth,” it is evident that young users were key to the take-up of mobile Internet, and then to the development of mobile media cultures—apps being center stage in that process (Stald, 2008). Social media apps on smartphones were especially influential in the appification of digital media and society in this new phase (Goggin, 2014). In many ways, via young users, social media apps become “anchor” software for the explosion of app-centered smartphone cultures that extended to almost inconceivable