Steve Jobs Introduces the App Store and iPhone SDK (2008)

On March 6, 2008, Apple announced the iPhone software development kit, a developer program and the App Store, a single place for outside developers to deliver their apps wirelessly to iPhone and iPod touch owners. When the store opened that July, it had more than 500 apps on day one. This excerpt from the event covers the announcement itself; Apple's own full recording, about 78 minutes long, is in its Apple Events video podcast. The announcement turned the iPhone from a closed gadget into a platform and set the pattern that every phone software store has followed since. It is the least glamorous recording on the list and, measured by what changed afterward, one of the most important.