There's no doubt that Steve Jobs was a visionary in terms of envisioning new technologies and services. In fact, there are plenty of interviews on the Internet that prove he was thinking way ahead of his time. One certain interview indicates that he already had a fair idea about online shopping and the App Store, way back in 1983. 

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Jobs spoke at a conference in 1983 and he was already talking about people buying software online. To get things into perspective, the Internet became available to households almost a decade later. Jobs was already talking about users buying software online, even before the Internet was made available to the general public. 

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In 1983, the software was sold and distributed on the bigger 5.25-inch floppy drives that were expensive to manufacture and was considered a slow delivery method. Jobs was speaking at the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado and already had envisioned an alternate delivery method for software. 

This is how Steve Jobs explained his vision:

“Software is information, and information is expressed with a bunch of ones and zeros. Where we'll be going in translating this stuff electronically on the phone lines. When we want to buy a piece of software we'll take our ones and zeros … and go directly from computer to computer,”

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At the time, the Internet was a tool for the military and was not available for use by the general public. In fact, many people dismissed his claim back in 1983, however, we all know how the tables have turned. 

Even though online shopping became a thing way after the Internet became a basic utility, Steve Jobs was already thinking ahead of the curve and today, millions of applications (read software) are downloaded by users every day.