App Store Apps Finally Gets Prettier Pages
With the launch of iTunes 9, Apple revamped many of the areas of the iTunes online store so that they were rendered with WebKit, the open source web layout engine (which browsers like Safari and Chrome also use). Alongside this, the whole store was redesigned.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands days after Apple's App Store launch was framed as a game-changing distribution channel, with the iPod Touch cast as Apple's weapon in the smartphone fight — which makes the storefront itself, not just the device, the merchandise. With iTunes 9, Apple confirmed a full redesign of the iTunes online store and moved page rendering onto WebKit, the open-source layout engine behind Safari and Chrome.
The significance is architectural as much as cosmetic: the world's dominant app marketplace now renders through the same engine Apple ships in its own browser. Confirmed reporting puts this alongside a run of small December updates (AirPort Client Update 2009-002, MacBook Pro EFI 1.8), but this is the one that changes what every iPhone and iPod Touch user sees when they shop for apps.
First-order effects
- Developers get materially better app pages inside the client every iPhone and iPod Touch owner already uses — their listing becomes a real merchandising surface rather than a text-and-thumbnail record.
Second-order effects
- Rival handset storefronts are pressured to match richer visual presentation of apps, because discovery and conversion now depend on how well a page sells an application, not just whether search finds it.
Third-order effects
- If Apple keeps building storefront experiences on WebKit, the line between desktop client software and the web blurs toward whatever its own open-source engine renders best — an approach that favors Apple's control of both the engine and the store.
The trend: Consumer software storefronts are shifting from native interface chrome to web-engine rendering, with Apple setting the template using the open-source stack it already controls through Safari.