When we want an application to do something specific with our smartphone or our PC, we resort to the corresponding application store, from which we download, install and start using it. However, things were not always so easy.
Before the popularization of application stores, there were some services and websites with a similar purpose, but basically it was each one of the software producers who published their program on their own website and looked for life to make it known to someone of the existing repositories on the Internet.
Who had the great idea to create the first application store as we know today was Apple with the App Store, which was launched in 2008 shortly after the launch of the first iPhone (the latter, in 2007).
Apple not only created a centralized repository, a site that anyone could go to to install any application on their phone, but also had the right idea to make it mandatory.
This implies that the user of an iPhone, iPad or device that uses iOS ( Apple's mobile operating system ) cannot download and install anything that is not extracted directly from the App Store.
But, for developers, this means no longer depending on those who visit their website to download their applications, but instead they had before them a universal showcase in which everyone, and all other things being equal , could expose their product.
It was, at the time, a revolution parallel to the multi-store shopping center; If we want to buy, we have to go from store to store, or to the large area of a supermarket chain. With shopping centers, however, we find a multitude of stores and brands in a single space, which also offers us additional services.
Apple's model caught on, since it was beneficial for users, developers, and the apple company itself, so the other manufacturers and platforms followed suit.
This was the case with BlackBerry, for example, and also with Google, which only took a few months longer than Apple to launch its own application store (initially Android Market, later renamed Google Play).
Unlike Apple, Google still allows the user of an Android device to download and install an application that does not come from its store, although it does not recommend it for security reasons .
In this sense, it should be noted that both the App Store and Google Play, malware has been found at some point.
Over time, app stores have adopted various content for sale, such as music, movies, books, and magazines.
All these contents are designed for consumption from the smartphone or tablet, and so that they can be shared between different devices, by means of synchronization between them.
And not only portable devices use this software distribution model , which has also ended up reaching desktop operating systems, such as Windows or Ubuntu Linux.
With this, the application stores of the different platforms, and especially those of Apple and Google, have become one of the main engines of the new digital economy .