Apple loves to highlight the fact that it has paid developers billions of dollars since the inception of the App Store. The whole smartphone ecosystem now thrives on apps so it is not surprising to see App Store generating millions of dollars in revenue for many popular apps. Apple has frequently highlighted how iOS apps have helped improve the life of end users, but it has never highlighted how the App Store has changed the life of developers.

A short video posted on Twitter shows a young developer and a son using the money he earned from his first app to pay off his parents’ mortgage and surprising them. Its an emotional video for sure and one that beautifully highlights how the App Store changed the life of this developer.

Son uses the money he earned from developing his first app to surprise his parents by paying off their mortgage pic.twitter.com/f3vUNTlduU

— Kevin W (@kwilli1046) April 2, 2019

The developer in question is Joseph Riquelme, the founder of Videoshop. The app was extremely popular when Vine was still around and while it has lost some of its sheen now, it still remains popular among heavy Instagram users.

The video is also a great reminder of how despite the App Store ranking being dominated by the likes of Facebook Messenger, Spotify, Netflix, and others, the App Store is also home to many other equally popular and useful apps.

Just earlier this year, Apple boasted about the fact that developers have earned over $120 billion worldwide since the inception of the App Store. Developers in Europe have also earned over $25 billion since 2008. These numbers are nothing to scoff at and while most of the revenue is generated by the top grossing apps from major developers, the App Store also helps hundreds and thousands of small developers live a debt-free life.

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