Question
Did you ever make mobile apps before the iPhone and App Store? What was the distribution experience like?
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I remember building apps as Java Applets and distributing it as a Jar file.
The memory gives me shivers. Debugging across devices was very painful.
Distribution is a strong word, but it was done by sending links to download the Jar file. Similar to how you would install an APK file on an Android device today.
I only targeted a few devices, mostly Nokia devices.
Independent apps weren't much of a thing back then. In those days, mobile apps were used more as a bonus to some other subscription service you were using.
Most of the apps I worked on were games / calendars / ringtones etc.
You would pay for it on the website and get an SMS with a link to download the Jar file.
Upgrading involved uninstalling the old version, then installing a new version; and had a 50% probability of failure 😂
I remember being able to buy some basic Nokia games from my carrier way back when, where you’d dial some system number like *1234# and it’d download the game and charge your phone bill.
Getting an SMS with a download link sounds advanced in comparison. And that upgrade process sounds more fraught than upgrading Windows back in the day!
Oh yeah, I think the most popular payment method was phone bill based. That required partnering with various carriers or other companies, which was harder for smaller startups.
Fascinating. Oh man, how many devices were your apps trying to target? And what was the payments system to sell the apps?