Was it Steam? Which first launched in 2003?
Did Apple debut objectively novel behavior that made the App Store a thing? Perhaps the install flow, or maybe the developer submission flow? (Which was admittedly awful for a number of years)
Valve Steam - announced on March 22, 2002, released for beta testing the same day. [1]
Windows Marketplace - announced on July 12, 2004, launched on October 12, 2004 [2].
Nokia Ovi - announced on 29 August 2007, public beta on 28 August 2008 [3].
iPhone App Store - opened on July 10, 2008 [4].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(service)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Marketplace
Sept 2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_Runtime_Environment_for...
"an application development platform created by Qualcomm, originally for code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile phones, featuring third-party applications such as mobile games. It is offered in some feature phones (mostly with the similar specifications of a mid to high-end mobile phones) but not in smartphones. Developed in 1999, as a platform for wireless applications on CDMA-based mobile phones, it debuted in September 2001."
> Downloads:
> Since Mar.31, 2004: 4,189,079
> Last week: 209,952
Possible trace:
> On-Device Portal technology emerged in 2000 [2]
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20050429230232/http://www.getjar....
That said, the idea of iOS and App Store that you don’t ever sideload, browse from PC or web browser, or handle .ipa directly, as an integrated whole, do feel novel to me.
If you drop the money a BBS is an old-man's appstore.