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It goes without saying that Steve Jobs will always be known as the father of the iPhone. Eighteen years later, his introduction of what would become the most successful consumer product of all time is still—I would argue—the greatest tech keynote ever delivered. It is, after all, the only time I’ve seen a tech CEO prank call a Starbucks and order 4,000 lattes.
The iPhone transformed everything from how we communicate to how we work to how we capture the moments we care about. But, 14 years after Jobs passed away at age 56, you can make the case that the iPhone isn’t his most enduring idea. That distinction, I think, belongs to another of his revolutionary ideas: the Apple Store.
There are many reasons I say that, but the only one that matters is that the iPhone, as revolutionary as it was, would have never been possible without the Apple Store.
That might sound strange. One is a piece of technology, the other is a retail space. But the Apple Store is the reason people understood—and trusted—Apple enough to buy the iPhone in the first place. It’s the most powerful expression of Jobs’ obsession with controlling every part of the customer experience. And it’s the one part of Apple’s ecosystem that has only grown more important with time.
When the first two Apple Stores opened in May 2001, most people thought Jobs was crazy. Gateway had just shut down its stores after losing millions. Dell’s direct-to-consumer model was thriving online. Why, critics asked, would anyone need a physical store to sell computers?
Jobs had a simple answer: because no one else could tell Apple’s story the way Apple could.
Before the Apple Store, buying a Mac meant walking into a store like CompUSA, where the computers were shoved in a corner next to fax machines and discount printers. No one was explaining why a Mac was different. No one was showing how it worked. Apple had great products, but no way to tell the story.
Selling Macs in its own retail stores changed that. The design was intentional: wide tables instead of shelves, clean glass and light wood instead of clutter and chaos. It felt more like a showroom than a computer shop—everything was meant to be touched. You could play with a Mac, edit a photo, make a video, and see what Apple meant when it said, “It just works.”
That experience did something no ad campaign ever could. It built trust. It made people feel like Apple wasn’t just selling them a computer—it was inviting them into a way of thinking about technology.
By the time the iPod came along later that year, the Apple Store was already doing exactly what Jobs envisioned. It was making complicated technology feel simple and accessible, and giving people a reason to believe that Apple could make something better.
And when the iPhone arrived in 2007, the world was ready.
The iPhone was radical, but what made it believable was everything that came before it. If you were going to ask people to pay $500 for a smartphone, you needed a space that made it make sense. The Apple Store did that. It was the place where you could pick up Apple’s vision of the future and hold it in your hand.
More importantly, it let Apple control how that future was introduced. Carriers might have sold the majority of iPhones, but the Apple Store was where people fell in love with them. It was where they learned to use them, where they came for help, and where they came back for their next one.
Even today, Apple Stores are still the company’s most effective marketing tool. They are, quite literally, the physical embodiment of the brand—every one of them a giant glowing billboard. You don’t walk past an Apple Store and wonder what the company stands for. You feel it.
That feeling has real financial weight. Before the pandemic, Apple Stores generated more revenue per square foot than any other retailer—about $5,500 per square foot, according to eMarketer data—more than Tiffany & Co., more than Lululemon, more than any luxury brand on the planet. The number has fluctuated over the years, but the point remains: no one has ever been more successful at physical retail on this scale.
In 2023, Apple’s direct-to-consumer business—its stores and website—accounted for roughly 37 percent of the company’s total sales, according to Apple’s SEC filings. That’s tens of billions of dollars sold directly, without a middleman. For iPhones, the carriers still dominate overall sales, but Apple Stores aren’t about volume; they’re about experience and control.
Jobs understood that better than anyone. He once said that Apple exists at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. The Apple Store was the intersection of technology and theater. It gave the company a stage to perform its story—every day, in cities all over the world. It continues to be the perfect place to expose more people to Apple’s products, and—more importantly—its brand.
It’s also the part of his vision that’s aged the best. The iPhone is now in its 17th generation. Macs and iPads have gone through dozens of redesigns. The Apple Store has evolved, but it’s still very much the place Apple prefers to tell its story.
When you walk into an Apple Store today, you’re walking into the company’s ideal for how technology should feel, and that comes directly from Jobs. He believed the experience should be human, warm, and a little bit magical. Every clean line, every Genius Bar conversation, every moment you pick up a product and instantly get it—that’s Jobs’ philosophy in physical form.
That’s what makes it his most enduring legacy. Sure, the iPhone changed the world. But it was the Apple Store that made it possible. It taught people to expect beauty and simplicity from technology. It taught them to trust Apple. And it gave the company a direct connection to its customers that no competitor has ever matched.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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Jason Aten
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