Everybody keeps citing how “Steve Jobs wanted web apps” from Walter Isaacson’s biography, but I don’t think he was all that strongly dead set against them:
He was against them “partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.”
In my opinion, I don’t think Steve was actually against an App Store by any sort of philosophical ideal. He was working with a much smaller Apple was trying to get a 1.0 product out the door.
The iPhone barely worked long enough to run the demos for the original keynote. I recall reading that it was a miracle that the software got through it without crashing. “Web apps” was the excuse for the App Store not being ready: personally I think it was part of the plan by that point.
He was against them “partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.”
https://www.cultofmac.com/125180/steve-jobs-was-originally-d...
In my opinion, I don’t think Steve was actually against an App Store by any sort of philosophical ideal. He was working with a much smaller Apple was trying to get a 1.0 product out the door.
The iPhone barely worked long enough to run the demos for the original keynote. I recall reading that it was a miracle that the software got through it without crashing. “Web apps” was the excuse for the App Store not being ready: personally I think it was part of the plan by that point.