How Much does a Preposition Matter?

March 11th, 2009

Adam Lisagor on the App Store (see what I did there?):

The phrase ‘on the App Store’ is the chosen syntax to which developers are to adhere in marketing materials. Apple disapproves of and even forbids altering the App Store banner (pictured above). But the guidelines specified under Apple’s licensing agreement dictate adherence to this phrasing in all promotion of an app, even the developer’s own original text. Not ‘at the App Store’ and not ‘from the App Store’, they dicate. Always use ‘on the App Store’.

Niggling little detail, you say? Shut up, you say? Fair enough, but the choice of ‘on’ as opposed to ‘in’ or ‘at’ or even ‘from’ raises, in me, a question of what it is exactly that Apple wants the App Store to be.