4 ms·
"I owned a string of PalmOS devices during this period. Their ‘app store’ was literally boxes of software in a store which you had to install from your computer
by mmahemoff 13y ago
"I owned a string of PalmOS devices during this period. Their ‘app store’ was literally boxes of software in a store which you had to install from your computer. No different than 1980s PCs."
That's not really true. Mobile devices around that time were designed as peripherals of the PC, so you could download apps to PC and install them by cable-syncing. Palm apps were just .PRC files.
It really wasn't too complicated and was a far sight from buying shrink-wrapped software in a physical store. It's just a shame that Palm, MS, and other platforms left this stuff to third-party websites instead of making it a more seamless experience for users and a more profitable one for them.
- csixty4 13y agoThere still were shrink-wrapped PDA apps available in stores, though, which is probably how a lot of people acquired them. I never owned a PDA back then, but I'm assuming they were just the same files with a shiny installer.
- r00fus 13y agoI'd say that downloading software on my original iPhone was probably the 2nd most OMG moment of owning the device (the first being the capacitive IPS display that made the icons seem painted-on). Seeing an app download over a 2G cell connection and be usable in 2 minutes - that was amazing. No clickwrap installer, no license keys, no entering payment details. It foretold the doom of non-AppStore software sales in a wonderful zen moment.
- bdarnell 13y agoThere were some early (third-party) online app stores too - sites that would handle payment processing and host your .prc files for you (e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20020124152252/http://www.palmgear.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20020124152252/http://www.palmge...).