My First Four Apps
Some of the first applications I purchased in the initial days of Apple’s App Store launch included Pennies (top-left), Sketches (top-right), iBeer (bottom-left), & Super Monkey Ball (bottom-right).
On July 10, 2008, I shot out of bed, ran over to my Mac, plugged in my iPod touch, and eagerly installed the latest version of iPhoneOS, iPhoneOS 2.0, the software version that introduced the mobile App Store. Of the 500 apps available on launch day, these are some of the first four applications I downloaded that day.
Pennies
Screenshots of the Pennies user interface. The app was developed by Austin Sarner.
Pennies got in on the ground floor of iPhone expense tracking apps. Using a clever gas-tank gauge metaphor, users set a monthly budget and added expenses that would deplete the gauge. New Expenses were added with a few clicks: hitting 'add expense,' selecting from one of 10 fixed categories (food, amusement, electronics, etc.), entering in the purchase amount, and saving the transaction. Pennies keep a running tally showing your remaining budget for the month and would highlight the categories where you're spending the most, in addition to showing you what your average daily spending was.
Pennies was last updated to Version 1.1.3 11 years ago and is no longer available to download from the App Store.
Macworld did a review of Pennies (awarding it 3.5 stars): Review: Pennies for iPhone.
Sketches
Screenshots of Sketches for iOS. It’s a little upsetting that these screenshots are over nine years old, and the iMac (despite being a cartoon) looks unchanged.
Sketches comes courtesy of LateNiteSoft, the developers behind the popular iPhone camera app Camera+ 2. Sketches was a multipurpose drawing application that performed several functions: as a notepad for jotting down finger-scribbled notes, a way to annotate photos/screenshots digitally, and as a drawing application offering a selection of brushes, colours, graphic, shapes & text. Sketches were saved & displayed in a cork-board so skeuomorphic that to this day, Jony Ive stills breaks into a cold sweat if he thinks about it for too long.
The original Sketches application was last updated to Version 1.7.8 9 years ago as a bug fix release. An updated version of the application, Sketches 2 (go figure!), was released in 2009 and last updated to Version 2.9 in 2012. Both apps are no longer available on the App Store.
Bonus: I was surprised to learn that LateNiteSoft’s website for Sketches was still active: Sketches.
iBeer
It’s comforting to realize that humanity decided to put their talents towards creating a faux beer-drinking simulator in the early days of the App Store.
What better way to have debuted the iPhone's new App Store than by having an application that harnessed into iPhone's accelerometer & graphics engine to simulate drinking a pint of beer? When the phone was held in portrait mode, the beer would bubble & slosh around, but by tilting your phone, you could simulate the experiencing of drinking a beer without any of the calories or enjoyment of a real beer. The app even produced a loud burp after you finished your drink (#ClassyAF), and you could refill your phone with another pints to your heart's content.
Besides filling your phone with a lager, the app also includes a lite beer option, a stout, an amber ale, coffee, mouthwash, milk (both regular, chocolate, & strawberry), and something called "Alien Disco Milk,". But you'll make a $2.99 in-app purchase to unlock these additional beverages. It's worth noting, given the recent uproar surrounding the App Store, that unlocking "Alien Disco Milk" does net Apple a $0.90 cut of the profits.
Of all the apps featured in this article, this is the only app that is still available. iBeer was last updated two years ago with the version notes stating: "Tastier beer! Drink beer on iOS 11." I also feel compelled to mention that the app is optimized for the iPad, and yes, it's every bit as unnecessary as the iPhone version.
Super Monkey Ball
Cute monkey, perilous obstacle courses, and that perfect blend of fun and rage-inducing frustration emblematic of the Super Money Ball franchise.
Like iBeer, Super Monkey Ball was the perfect game to introduce for the newly debuted App Store: a game from a major game studio (i.e., SEGA) that highlighted the iPhone's accelerometer and gaming capabilities. The mechanics of the game have you maneuvering a monkey in a ball (hence the name) around various levels and obstacles, accomplished by tilting your iPhone to adjust the playing field's slope, which accelerated and maneuvered the ball. This mechanic was incredibly simple but took hours to master as levels required increased dexterity, skill, and luck to beat as you progressed through the game.
You can watch former Vice President of iOS software Scott Forestall introduce Super Monkey Ball in this clip from the iPhone SDK keynote back on March 06, 2008.
While the original Super Monkey Ball hasn't been updated since version 1.0.3 11 years ago, you can still play an updated version of the App Store franchise by downloading Super Monkey Ball: Sakura.
