In 2022, we downloaded just over 140 billion apps onto our phones. In financial terms, we spent USD 129 billion tapping virtual buttons on the screen

Indie app developers, the App Store “middle class” — Notes by Rodrigo Ghedin

submited by

Style Pass

2023-03-29 21:00:10

In 2022, we downloaded just over 140 billion apps onto our phones. In financial terms, we spent USD 129 billion tapping virtual buttons on the screen of devices that fit in our pockets.

Not even the most optimistic Apple executive could have predicted in 2008, at the launch of the iOS App Store, that this mobile app business could be so profitable. And so useful. From the trivial activities of the early days, like reading e-mail and opening websites, we have gone on to do almost everything on the phone, from paying for things and investing to “summoning” cars and food.

Every now and then I come across stories like that of Hiroyuki Ueda, a retired Japanese designer who imagined an app that, according to him, did not exist: one that would display two calculators at the same time on the phone screen and allowed you to throw the results from one to another.

His unpretentious Twin-Calc became a minor success, to the point of getting covered at The Mainichi, a Japanese newspaper, where I learned this story.