Sure for the Palm market - there were vendors making applications, people buying them, and people buying devices just to run those applications. At the time, you could subscribe to dead-tree magazines that had reviews, advertisements just for Palm devices and applications. The market was large enough to support many companies, and many people buying and selling software.
Even the TRS-80 Model 100 had it's own market for software that was thriving for about three years - complete with requisite magazine support.
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My hunch is that the new generation of people who recently discovered the recent application ecosystems are shocked to find out that some slightly-older people remember when this same exciting feeling happened before - I would imagine all the way back to the late 1970's when you could put a computer together yourself and sell software out of your garage.
I appreciate the hint that I may be younger than you, but I was involved in the eco-systems around the Sinclair ZX81 and the Spectrum, and later on with DECUS, so I have a pretty good idea how this stuff works.
My point isn't whether or not there's an ecosystem, but whether or not there's a planned ecosystem which is deliberately designed to add value, and created as a conscious strategy - not just something that happens by accident.
I wish people here would stop thinking about technology and think more about the overall user experience - which is not about hardware or software or ecosystems, but about creating gotta-have-that experiences and life-changing tools.
So far I don't see WATCH doing that. It might, and there may be plans, and we'll all be surprised a year from now.
But so far, there's no evidence that Apple are thinking about WATCH in those terms. And that makes it different to previous launches.
This is why I hedged with the word 'significant.' I completely agree that people were making and selling apps for mobile devices before the iPhone came along. Can we both agree that the ecosystem exploded in size and visibility to the general population only after the iPhone was released, though?
That's what happens when something becomes consumer focused rather than (essentially) B2B. Prices go way down, sales go way up. I paid $50 for a Palm app back in the day, and that same app would go for 99c today. That doesn't mean the Palm app marketplace was insignificant or unimportant. Smartphones wouldn't be here if their value wasn't proven with PDAs.
You're quite correct that the market is much broader now - not only are there more consumers, there's more developers.
But to me, this doesn't feel different - just larger.
Even the cycles seem to the same - with early adopters leading the way, the first wave of quick and dirty apps, then more polished apps, and then the tsunami of shovel-ware that kills the market for newcomers.
