Following on nicely from last week’s post on platforms for co-creation, Apple have just taken another step towards C K Prahalad’s vision of tomorrow’s innovation model. Alongside the launch of the new 3G iPhone, Apple have just snuck out a new business platform which could, in time be as big as iTunes is today. The Apple App store is a new online Apple store that will post and sell third party software applications. The plan is to split revenues between Apple and the 3rd party software developers in the ratio of 30/70. So far, hundreds of thousands of developers have downloaded iPhone’s software developer’s kit, and with predictions of hundreds of millions of iPhone users five years from now, the App store could be a very busy place indeed.

Third party software could enable the market itself to keep the innovation pipeline going. Steve Jobs says that the new iPhone is about the things consumers have been asking for, and about delivering a whole bunch of stuff they didn’t even know they wanted.

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