App Store - page 2

A new battle brews in the tech world as major app developers band together to challenge Apple and Google’s control over the mobile ecosystem, according to a new report. Meta, Match and Spotify join forces against Apple and Google, forming a lobbying coalition aimed at influencing policy around age verification requirements and addressing long-standing grievances about app store practices.

April 23, 2009: Less than a year after opening its virtual doors, the App Store reaches 1 billion downloads.

Peer-to-peer file sharing app Bump becomes the 1 billionth app to be downloaded. As a result of his purchase, 13-year-old Connor Mulcahey of Weston, Connecticut, wins a “1 Billion App Countdown” promotion.

He takes home an assortment of Apple products valued at more than $13,000, including a $10,000 iTunes gift card, a 32GB iPod touch, an Apple Time Capsule wireless router and a 17-inch MacBook Pro.

March 6, 2008: Apple releases the iPhone software development kit, finally allowing coders to start creating native mobile apps for the new smartphone. The iPhone SDK gives developers the tools they need to unlock the new smartphone’s potential.

When the App Store eventually opens a few months later, a new industry springs up overnight. Third-party devs rush to take advantage of Apple’s lucrative app distribution network.

You can visit the App Store to download Apple apps like Music, Podcasts, Weather, Maps and Find My missing from your iPhone or iPad. If you can’t find them. It’s possible you uninstalled them and your device needs to download them again. Or they might have simply disappeared from your Home Screen, and are now hiding in the App Library.

There are also a few iPhone apps that Apple hasn’t made available on iPad. This was the case with Calculator until very recently, so you may need to install an update to get it.

I’ll walk you through all the possibilities, showing you how to get Apple’s stock apps back on your iPhone or iPad.

March 5, 2012: Apple reaches a staggering milestone, with 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with a giveaway titled the “25 Billion App Countdown.”

The lucky 25 billionth app downloader wins an iTunes gift card worth $10,000.

Apple reinstated TikTok on the App Store, once again making it available for download. This move comes after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a letter to Apple confirming that the U.S. government won’t enforce the ban on TikTok.

Apple removed TikTok and other ByteDance apps from the App Store in mid-January to comply with the law.

To help expedite recovery in response to deadly Los Angeles wildfires, Apple gives users simple ways to help LA wildfire victims by linking donation pages in popular apps directly to the American Red Cross, CEO Tim Cook said in an X.com post Wednesday. This follows the iPhone giant’s own donation of an undisclosed amount as well as considerations extended to wildfire victims regarding their Apple Card payments.

It’s a new year, and it’s a fine time to clear out some of the mistakes of the past. That includes no longer paying for apps or services you don’t use anymore. Luckily, it’s easy — if you know how to cancel subscriptions on your Apple devices.

Here’s how to find everything you’ve signed up for through the App Store, see what it’s costing you, and cancel it if you’ve lost interest. Or perhaps save a bit of money by changing how often you’re billed.

December 31, 2012: App piracy hub Hackulous shuts down, bringing an end to two of its most popular apps, Installous and AppSync.

The iPhone jailbreak tool Installous allowed users to install “cracked” or pirated apps on their iOS devices, thereby avoiding paying purchase fees to Apple or developers. AppSync let users sync their cracked apps with iTunes.

Apple unveiled its annual roundups of top apps and games — that is, those most downloaded titles — across iPhone, iPad and Apple Arcade platforms Monday. The comprehensive year-end lists are featured on the App Store’s Today tab. They offer insights into user preferences across more than 30 countries and regions. And once again, free app and games dominate, overlapping with recent App Store Award winners.

Apple on Wednesday honored the winners of its 2024 App Store Awards. These come in a range of categories, like iPhone App of the Year, Mac Game of the Year, and many more.

“We are thrilled to honor this impressive group of developers who are harnessing the power of Apple devices and technology to deliver experiences that enrich the lives of users and have a profound impact on their communities,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The remarkable achievements of this year’s winners demonstrate the incredible ingenuity that can be unlocked through apps.”

Apple named the finalists Monday for its annual App Store Awards. These awards honor “exceptional user experience, design, and innovation,” according to the Mac-maker. App awards come in a range of categories, like iPhone App of the Year, Mac Game of the Year, and many more.

The nominations aren’t just kudos for developers — they’re a great way for users to find high-quality software.

Sick of apps constantly asking you to rate them? There is a way you can block App Store rating requests completely on iPhone, iPad and Mac so that the pesky popups no longer appear. We’ll show you how.

Disney+ no longer accepts user subscriptions through the App Store. This change also applies to Hulu. Instead, Disney and Hulu redirect users to their respective websites to sign up for a subscription.

The move is about commission fees, not technology.

A U.S. federal judge ordered sweeping changes to Google Play, the default source for Android applications. Rival Android software marketplaces will get a big boost as a result.

While the iPhone App Store is similar, Apple’s and Google’s situations are different enough that iPhone users shouldn’t expect similar changes anytime soon. Long term? That’s a different story.

Apple relaxed the App Store rules earlier this year, paving the way for cloud gaming apps on the iPhone. However, Microsoft and Nvidia have not yet listed their cloud gaming services on the App Store. The former argues that Apple’s rules are still too restrictive for this.

Microsoft’s main issue revolves around the 30% commission that Apple wants for IAPs. It says the fee is “neither economically sustainable nor justifiable.”

Matt Fischer, the vice president in charge of the App Store since 2010, will leave Apple in October of this year. His departure will follow a major reorganization that splits the App Store team in two as Apple seeks to avoid further regulatory scrutiny.

One part of the team will oversee Apple’s App Store, while the other will manage third-party app marketplaces.

AltStore PAL, the first third-party app marketplace to launch in the EU, is dropping its subscription model and going free.

Until now, new users had to pay a yearly subscription fee of €1.50 with VAT. This allowed Riley Testut to cover the Core Technology Fee (CTE), which Apple charges from third-party EU app stores.

Patreon, a service that many authors, artists, etc. use to get funding from fans, has to switch its iPhone/iPad application to Apple’s in-app purchase system by November. The company criticized the requirement on Monday, and pointed out this will add Apple’s 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased through the iOS software.

But Patreon isn’t being singled out — Apple makes virtually all applications use its purchasing system. Not that’s everyone is happy about it.

Spotify and Epic Games have criticized Apple for its latest App Store fee and external linking changes in the EU. They claim Apple has again disregarded the “fundamental requirements” of the Digital Markets Act.

On August 8, 2024, Apple announced new EU App Store policies to comply with the Digital Markets Act. This follows the European Commission’s June ruling that Apple violated the act’s steering rules.

Apple is making changes to its App Store policies in the European Union to comply with the Digital Markets Act. It’s essentially easing linking rules for developers, so they can send customers elsewhere than the App Store for purchases. And it’s attaching new fees for sales that result from the links.

AltStore PAL, the first third-party app marketplace for iOS, now lets users install apps created by independent developers. The change, which arrived Wednesday in AltStore PAL version 2.1, makes previously restricted apps available to iPhone owners in the European Union.

“This means apps that have been rejected by the App Store — such as torrenting apps and virtual machines — have another path forward for the first time ever,” Riley Testut, developer of AltStore, told Cult of Mac.

The update is launching with a few third-party apps available now — iTorrent, qBitControl and PeopleDrop — “apps that are only possible with AltStore PAL,” according to Testut.

The number of Android applications on Google Play is likely to drop after Google updated its Minimum Functionality policy to block apps that “only have limited functionality and content.”

Unlike the experience in Apple’s App Store, Android users must wade knee-deep through useless apps to find anything worthwhile. The new policy should remedy this … assuming Google enforces it.

The first PC emulator for iOS is now available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro. Free app UTM SE allows you to run “classic software and old-school games.”

Apple first rejected the developer’s submission in June, citing a violation of the App Store Review Guidelines. However, Apple appears to have changed its stance regarding PC emulators on the App Store since then.

Starting in September, Microsoft will require its employees in China to use iPhones for work-related activities, effectively banning Android devices from work use, according to a new report. And of course the irony of a new policy stating that Microsoft employees in China must use Apple devices isn’t lost on us.