I'm talking about the appstores/repo's as technical features of an installed operating system base. We in Linux have had the ability to easily access app-store

I'm talking about the appstores/repo's as technical features of an installed operating system base. We in Linux have had the ability to easily access app-store catalogs for years; Apple have built theirs relatively recently in comparison. And the fact that there has been free as in beer, and open source 'walled gardens' is exactly the point I'm making: Sharp could've had an app store in the 90's, they already had the repository and just needed to add a customer element; this is the only new thing Apple has added to the game. Repo's were old hat until it morphed into Appstores.