There were no manufacturer owned and operated on-the-phone application stores as the sole source
A sole source for applications on a given platform is a Bad Thing. I say this as a supporter of the principle of app stores. It's better for the consumer on most any computing platform to have a single default system for software purchase, download, installation and updates. I find the centralized package management on most Linux distributions to be one of their biggest advantages over other platforms. It's the single part that's a problem; it means that the market does not have the final say on what will become popular on the platform.
A sole source for applications on a given platform is a Bad Thing. I say this as a supporter of the principle of app stores. It's better for the consumer on most any computing platform to have a single default system for software purchase, download, installation and updates. I find the centralized package management on most Linux distributions to be one of their biggest advantages over other platforms. It's the single part that's a problem; it means that the market does not have the final say on what will become popular on the platform.