I think they did bring programming to the people by way of the app store. Maybe they didn't make it so your aged granny can write an automation script, but that more people than ever were inspired to learn programming. They made two languages and a proprietary hardware/software/distribution stack that brought a lot of people into the world of software development. I know so many people a generation younger than me who learned programming specifically to make apps for the app store. People who would probably not have gone into development but for the iPhone. I'm sure Apple did not intend to mint new programmers, they intended to sell hardware and make money on software, but the net effect is more programmers than ever as a result of their choices.
That may be true, but the point was about empowering the end user. Making programing popular through the app store (arguable) is a separate (also important) topic.
Empowering the end user to not look at the computer as a black box that they have no idea about how it works is quite freeing and mind-expanding.
In the long term, I do believe there is a real risk for programming to become a niche where you end up asking for permission from the h/w vendor before you are allowed to write code on the device. We're slowly heading in that direction with app stores being bundled with the OS, and we may end up in a situation where you can only install s/w through the app store. And only "authorized" persons can download IDEs and dev tools. A large population that has no concept of programming is likely to not oppose this because the vendor will throw the security/privacy boogeyman at them, about "unauthorized" developers writing software that can harm them.
