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App — the Most Abused Word In Tech?
Barence writes "PC Pro has a blog exploring the misuse of the word 'app'. Until the iPhone came along, the word 'application' largely meant a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac. Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code for smartphones. Now, Google's pushing the boundaries of the 'app' definition even further. Google Chrome users will have seen a new addition to their browser recently: the Chrome Web Store. Here, you'll find dozens of 'apps' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the browser's home screen. Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites. Google's idea of 'apps' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks.' Does the word 'app' mean anything at all any more?"
There's an app for that.
Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code ...
Perhaps you would take care to avoid abusing words like 'widgets' and 'code' when tearing down the misuse of 'app'?
What does "widgets of code" mean here? What does "Tech" mean in the title?
Words change, things change. Move on.
Gone!
Have to disagree.. Cloud is the most abused word, and also the most irritating.
Just because most of the web isn't running on pre-compiled code doesn't make many of the applications any less worth being an app. Sure, a static HTML page isn't an app, but I'd say Google is. Slashdot is. YouTube is.
Would that be an acceptable alternative? You could even use case to emphasize, as in "appleT".
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Thins could always be worse. At least I've not heard anyone use the term "proggy" since like, 2000.
I preferred when it was "prog" instead of "app". App is what you call an applet
An application is a self-contained piece of software which is used for a particular task.
An app is a 'tiny' (by some metric) application.
Firefox addons can be seen as "Apps" if they did something large. Remember this is an 'end user' term. End users don't weigh how 'good ' a program is by LOC, by how many states it has or whatever, they weigh it by how much it does for them.
I thought the most abused word was "cyber"
I need an app to manage my web services supporting ITIL services for the armed services
That claim is simply made up of whole cloth. The author has apparently never heard the phrase "killer app," which goes back to way before iPhones or smartphones.
"App" is a common and logical shortening of "application," and has been in widespread use for a long time.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I think the guy that created the solar death ray has aimed it at "applications" and "app" is all that remains.
That's all I've learned on slashdot today.
From TFS:
Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code for smartphones.
Apple has been talking about 'applications' in preference to 'programs' for decades. 'App' has been a common abbreviation in the Macintosh world for years.
...what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks'.
I'm reading with Firefox 3.6.13 and they're still referred to as Bookmarks.
Cloud. And I heard Blackholes are formed by throwing an App into the Cloud for virtualization.
This comment is not an app
Now it means a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC, Mac, or iPhone!
Now it means a self-contained piece of software that you access on the Web!
Okay, so, I haven't checked into all of them, but if an "app" was just some news web site with mostly static HTML pages of text and pictures, then yes, you might as well just call it a web site. But if the bookmark links to a page with interactive JavaScript, then, yes, that is an app. A depth-of-field calculator for photographers written in pure JavaScript? Yes, that's an app. A web-based to-do list? Yes, that is an app.
As the article points out, an 'app' is very different from an 'application'. I have never heard someone refer to an iPhone program as an 'application' and I have never heard someone use the term 'app' to refer to a stand-alone desktop software. This would seem to imply that they are distinct terms, and one is not merely shorthand for the other.
This is not the misappropriation of one term, but the creation of a new one. Sure, the word app has its root in the word application, but there are lots of words that come from old words (in fact, most words have their roots in other words that mean different, but related, things).
I think the only time that anyone should complain about the misuse of terms is when it is unclear which version of the word someone is using. An example from the article is the misuse of 'download' for 'upload'. If someone says download when they mean upload, it can be confusing. If someone calls something an 'app', no one will think they are talking about a desktop application.
Also another complaint with the article: applications have always referred to more than just 'a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac'. All other operating systems have applications as well.
Just because the application is running on a web server somewhere, and not on your hardware, doesn't mean it's not an application. Applications that users access over the web are called, gasp, "web apps".
Also, a bookmark is not the same as a web app. "bookmark" is a term for a URL that probably begins with "http" and is stored by a browser (unless it's IE, in which case I believe it's "favourite" instead). Slashdot is not a bookmark, but you can have a bookmark for Slashdot. The things being called "apps" in this case are not the little icons, they're the things you access using the icons.
How did this make it to the front page of Slashdot?
Just another proletarian malcontent.
I'd say "app" is the second most abused word.
The most abused word, I'd have to say is "cloud".
</PersonalOpinion>
"Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites." Except many of them are "apps" as much as any application has ever been. Fully running programs written in a programming language, which just happens to be HTML5. Also the abbreviation "app" predates the iPhone by approximately as long as I have used computers.
I want apps for my iPhone because it has the wifis and the bigger gee-bees
The common "folk" do this with everything, so I think it is odd that it is getting discussed with 'app'. As the subject said, there are still people that call all game systems a Nintendo (I seriously know a person who I have to correct because they will call their PS3 a Nintendo). They will still call all controllers paddles. They will call any system on Atari an Atari. They will call the Genesis a Sega.
There are lots of examples, but I like the paddles one the best. It does not matter what the controller is for or what it does, if it is associated with a video game system, some people, no matter what, call them paddles. The origin of this is from when the Atari 2600 made the paddle controller. Since then, people call all controllers paddles even though many of them have little to nothing to do with Atari 2600 paddles.
Suck it up and get used to the fact that people do this (even if it is a company), or correct them any chance you get and frustrate yourself
The world is how you make it
Part of the confusion and consternation comes from the fact that many "apps" are nothing more than proprietary encapsulated forms of what would be just a simple website on any more robust platform. Also "apps" can take the form of pure data such as an ebook. The term "app" is fairly well abused in the Apple framework.
Big corporations love to hijack common terms and treat them as personal trademarks. It seems Apple is no different than Microsoft in this respect.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Isn't the use of the acronym "PC" extremely misused as well? PC =/= just Windows machines. Macs and Unix machines are also PCs; heck, wouldn't a phone even be considered a PC?
We've been calling web services "web applications" for years. Why is it wrong to abbreviate them to "web apps" or just "apps"?
In my world, "app" is a couple of additional configuration files for our already installed software.
It confuses everyone.
-josh
Until computers came along, the word 'application' largely meant the act of putting something to a particular use. Then information technology took ownership, and the word 'application' became synonymous with a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac.
Words often take on new meanings. What's the big deal?
With the major advent of apps, there exists several tracking apps that lets you manage all your apps that don't manage themselves. (hereinafter referred to as "app apps")
I have created an app that manages apps that manage other apps that do not manage themselves. (hereinafter referred to as my "app app app")
Kurt Godel is currently investigating whether my app app app manages itself. If not, this feature will be added by Q3.
From the consumers' point of view:
the word 'application' [and 'app'] means a self-contained piece of software.
I vastly prefer the word "app" to "cyber."
As if adding "cyber" before every word suddenly makes it some revolutionary technological achievement.
*shudders*
My vote for most overused word in tech is definitely "cloud" - and Microsoft's ridiculous ad campaigns are not helping the situation. People use it in a very uninformed, buzzword manner in most circumstances.
I heart anarcho-capitalism.
Just "lication" - it's cleaner.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
And a shell script is just a text file. So are SVGs. And really a web page is just text, too, so we're all massacring English every time we use the word 'website.'
Get over yourself. These "bookmarks" have functionality. Functionality is what makes them apps. Who cares, really, if your app is a VBA script hosted in Excel, or a website, or an Java ME applet on a mobile phone, or an ELF executable? They all have functionality.
Running, driving and walking are transportation. Abbreviating it transp doesn't magically exclude flying, just as the word App doesn't exclude HTTP-transported, browser-contained applications.
Implicit Evaluation with PHP
Don't get me started on abuse of the word "cloud". internet != cloud. server array != cloud.
I work on Chrome.
An "app" is not necessarily a "bookmark". Many of the apps in the store include bundled content and/or require extra privileges (a la extensions). It is true that some apps do not have either of these things, but neither does Google Docs, which has long been considered a "web app" without people complaining.
Probably one of the more annoying aspects of working in tech. What? No - not online stuff.. Actual physical technology. No - not like a router. Like as in something that has nothing to do with the internet.
It should go without saying that any technical word used by the average layman likely has no sophisticated technical meaning.
Oh, how I long for the days of "news for nerds, stuff that matters."
This is a crap submission for a crap article. Nobody I know is confused about what an "app" is.
I've been telling all of my non-geek friends that when Apple says application they really mean applet, and the rest is just marketing BS.
but not enough to keep you going.
A Chrome app is not just a website. From http://code.google.com/chrome/webstore/docs/index.html#concepts:
"An installable web app can be a normal website with a bit of extra metadata; this type of app is called a hosted app. Alternatively, an installable web app can bundle all its content into an archive that users download when they install the app; this is a packaged app."
Also Chrome apps have an authentication and billing API that lets developers charge per access, by time or per install. This means apps don't have to do their own authentication or billing, they just use the API.
Apps also blur the line between extensions and websites, see the above link for more info.
There are hundreds of business applications where there is an "exe" or other "application" front end and a database backend. The front end could be called an application, or the entire package together could be called an application. There are hundreds of "web-based applications" and we call them applications. I would challenge the idea that Chromes "apps" are not apps. They are apps, just "web based apps."
The definition of application has always been changing. This is nothing new. This is merely taking the lexicon a step further and bringing it into the mainstream. If you were in an iPhone, and asked "What does that app do?" no one is going to have a problem figuring out what you mean. If you were in Chrome and asked "do you have this app?" again, no one is going to have a problem figuring out what you mean. The language isn't being severely diluted.
The definition of "application" has been changing since day 1. The execution of an application is still well understood by the people who create them, and the average end user doesn't care because they can get their point across simply. This is an example of a bunch of old grumpy programmers hating people who are not programmers telling them what's an "app" and what's not. That and they hate that Apple in a very "cutesy" way popularized apps by shortening the name and making it a little less geeky. "Application" has always included a broad category of computer programs that you enter data, and receive output. It's never limited the word to the structure of the code.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
With HTML5 features, a web page can be far more than just a news feed. One of the base apps, entangle I think, is pretty much a full featured puzzle game. Leaderboards, score tracking, audio, the works. It smacks of one of those ten dollar casual puzzle games that PopCap sells, which says a lot for a "simple" web page.
I also seem to remember someone created a replica of Quake in a similar manner.
Just because it looks like a normal web document doesn't mean it isn't more than just that.
"App" has a long way to go to beat "screen saver" for most abused tech word. Screen saver also wins in that it now commonly means the thing it was originally created to counteract - Static images which would burn in on CRT monitors.
This is like the term "AIDS Vaccine" commonly being used to describe the HIV virus.
This sentence no verb.
Today's websites are apps. They are complicated, bug-infested programs, with ugly UI and high latency. Just like Windows.
Until the iPhone came along, the word 'application' largely meant a self-contained piece of software installed on a PC or Mac.
Really? So something installed on, say, Amiga was not an "application"?
On the other hand, if you drop the "PC or Mac" part, the definition is still perfectly valid for iOS (and Android etc) apps. In fact, if anything, they're even more self-contained on average than your usual PC app, while all other marks are still there.
ow, Google's pushing the boundaries of the 'app' definition even further. Google Chrome users will have seen a new addition to their browser recently: the Chrome Web Store. Here, you'll find dozens of 'apps' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the browser's home screen. Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites.
Are they software? Yes (it doesn't magically become something else just because you lay out UI using HTML/CSS and code the backend using JS).
Do they solve some specific problem? Yes.
Are they self-contained? Yes.
Can they run offline (which is effectively equivalent to being "installed")? Yes.
They are applications.
I really love it when my, mom, doctor, boss, etc... calls a computer a CPU.
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
A website can be application according to these guys:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/offline.html
I'm inclined to believe them.
I dont call applications or programs on my desktop apps...and i dont call stuff on my portable devices applications or programs. I dont see this as anyone taking ownership of anything rather a term thats easily identifiable, to be fair what word would the author prefer? Widgets are used elsewhere, applets is basically the same just longer would you prefer "program like thingys", phone and tablet thingamajigs? Seriously aren't there better things to be concerned about rather than the supposed sullying an abbreviation for a word that actually describes the thing pretty well?
Then Apple took ownership, trimmed it to three letters, and within months the word 'app' became synonymous with small widgets of code for smartphones.
Until the Xerox Alto UI came along, the word 'widget' largely meant a self-contained device, item or unit of production. Then Xerox took ownership, made longer terms such as "widget toolkits" and "widget APIs", and within months the word 'widget' became synonymous with small icons in apps coded for desktop computers. Now, Microsoft is pushing the boundaries of the 'widget' definition even further. IE users will have seen a new addition to their desktop wallpaper recently: the embedded IE browser. Here, you'll find dozens of 'widgets' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the desktop's preferences screen. Except, these aren't 'widgets' at all. They're webpages. Microsoft's idea of 'widgets' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'DHTML.' Does the word 'widget' mean anything at all any more?
What google is calling an app is an app. Gmail, even though it is a website driven app, its not much different than Outlook. It is an app but it is installed server side and we are viewing it remotely.
Who cares?
Indeed, make sure to use the correct saw horse, intake manifold, casserole dish, or sewing needs to suit your particular application.
As much as Google Docs is a website it is also a web application. Whether the shortcut I see on my "Apps" view in Chrome takes me to a local or remote (cloud) program is irrelevant. If I am using vim remotely through a ssh client, am I using a terminal or vim, or both? In the same sense, the browser acts as a terminal for Google Docs, and denigrating the contemporary definition of 'app' is a waste of time.
I had a meeting with the owner of the printshop my company uses. He's a gadget guy, so we eventually started talking about all the cool stuff our phones can do now. He kept talking about how much more he liked "apps" than "programs". It took me a few minutes to realize that he understood "app" to mean the stuff he installs and runs on his phone, and "program" to mean the stuff the installs and runs on his computer. It was obvious from our conversation that these meanings were distinct in his mind and commonly used. It was new to me.
is the most abused word in tech.
My definition of "app" is a program that merely functions as a frontend to a website, and provides no additional functionality whatsoever outside of perhaps a few fancy images. Look at the iPhone App Store and you'll find thousands of these "apps" for different websites, all of which are nothing more than Safari wrappers hard-coded for a specific website.
Er, no, just because something runs on a smartphone, it doesn't stop it being an application. A video editor a dev team put together with a few hundred thousand lines of code doesn't become "a small widget" simply because the amount of memory it has to play with is less than the computer sitting on your desk. What a ridiculous, pointless article.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
The whole point is that websites are free, and free is a very poor business model. If they can start to charge (for an "app") what they used to give you for free (as a "website"), then they will be better off in the long run. You, on the other hand, will not be better off.
Back in the day, a hacker was someone who wrote quick pieces of software (a hack or hack writer). Someone who broke into systems was called a cracker. The media got ahold of it all, and now a cracker is a hard biscuit that you eat, and a hacker is either someone who swings an axe, or someone who breaks into things. Like the words 'internets' and 'codes', the media has done a fine job screwing up technical terms. Ya just can't trust 'em to get it right!
Now you kids get off my lawn!
but 'tech' is certainly quite abused.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Its a buzz-word, who cares? why is this news worthy?
[In the Chrome Web Store] you'll find dozens of 'apps' to install and run directly from a handy icon on the browser's home screen. Except, these aren't 'apps' at all. They're websites.
So Google has taken web clips and brought it to users the way Apple originally wanted to on the iPhone. Before the iPhone had native applications, "apps" were originally supposed to be nothing more than web clips anyway.
My only problem with this is relying on connectivity to use a piece of software that doesn't require online functionality, for example a unit converter vs displaying up to date weather information. Both of these could be done as web clips, but only one should be. Therefore it may be important to designate which apps are actually native applications and which are simply web clips.
Twinstiq, game news
How a word is commonly used is not the meaning of the word; it's the definition (that's why there are multiple entries for a single word in a dictionary).
Meaning is constituted by definition + context.
Of course "app" still means something, it just (like every other word) depends on which context you're using it in.
Now whether or not it's commonly used how you want it to be commonly used is another (uninteresting) topic altogether.
An 'app' is an application, Mac is a PC, Windows is a PC, Linux is a PC. Enough with this malarkey.
Does the word 'app' mean anything at all any more?
Hardly any specialized terminology survives with its meaning intact if it falls into the vernacular. If it becomes the subject of marketing, it fares even worse. "App" is just the latest victim.
"CPU" and "hard drive" are vernacular terms for the case of a computer. "PC" ended up tied to one particular hardware/software architecture. "Cybernetic" -- which had a very well-defined meaning in terms of a now largely forgotten interdisciplinary science -- was truncated to "cyber" and then applied to all kinds of things which aren't even remotely cybernetic, all vaguely tied to computing, which was itself just a subset of actual cybernetics. The general public never was able to grasp the semantics of "upload" and "download", and now apply one or the other randomly to any kind of data transfer. I'm sure everyone here has heard someone refer to Adobe Photoshop as "Adobe", blissfully unaware that they, um, have other products. Every household networking box becomes a "router" or a "hub" or a "modem" -- regardless of their actual function, depending on which term the speaker latched onto first. A USB cable is often just a "printer cable". Every small USB video camera becomes a "webcam", and speaking of the web, the extremely clear technical distinction between the web and the Internet upon which it is implemented is entirely lost on most of the public. And then we have monstrosities like "mibibyte" for we want to refer to what "megabyte" originally meant before hard drive marketers twisted the meaning to defraud technically inept customers.
It happens all the time, and there's not much that can be done about it, except to keep using the appropriate jargon in the appropriate technical context -- i.e., amongst one's peers, professional and amateur -- and speak the vernacular around everyone else, even if it makes your skin crawl. You'll only get a glazed look if you try to explain the correct usage.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
What is the definition of a widget, and how is it different from an application?
sorry for not knowing :(
I've gotta agree 100% with that. What does editing family photos, on your home PC, have to do with "the cloud" at all?
It's all a shallow effort to weld a Microsoft brand to an up-and-coming buzzword. They want the public to think "Windows" when they hear "the cloud". It doesn't matter how valid the association actually is as long as there's an association.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
"Chrome apps have an authentication and billing API that lets developers charge per access, by time or per install."
Right. Pay per view web pages.
Remember what happened last time.
I'd throw "bricked" in there, too.
Hardware is not "bricked" unless there is absolutely no way to get it running again, short of completely replacing some critical hardware component. But now it seems "bricked" is just synonymous with "I can't get it to boot".
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
When I was growing up there was a clear meaning to the word "application" that still holds even if used in conjuction with AJAX-websites: Application is short for application sofware and is any software that is not required to run the system (which is of course the system software or also known as the os).
So the app is really anything, exept the os. Go figure.
An application is '[something] that can be used to accomplish [something]", and 'app' is the abbreviation thereof... so by that definition which is pretty general but also common agreed upon, the abbreviation 'app' is used as properly as any other word. I think the average Joe will understand it to mean 'a computer based tool', and so really it's quite accurate. Those who have defined it in their own minds to mean a PC standalone program are guilty of defining it improperly in the first place, but those same people will also likely understand exactly what Google, Apple, etc... are describing. In any case, language is not a science, you're not supposed to have 100% black or white definitions. As long as people understand what's being put forward, there's no problem, in fact, that is a sign of success for a language.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
What about "CLOUD"?
No one knows what the f%$k it really means.
I thought that was a piece of paper you put in your book to mark the page whereyou left off reading.
Especially the Americans love misusing this. Everything is technology, incl. things that aren't. This just in: blacksmith creates horse shoe with hammer and anvil technology. Blacksmithing itself is of course also a technology.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No.
The meaning is changing slowly with mobile computing but most "websites" are now hosted applications and definitely not JUST static html. And there have got to be other terms which have been abused way more. Like.. hacking.
insert funny sig here
I have to disagree with the programmer snobery. Today's modern web applications (yes, they ARE applications!) can be just as complex and provide just as much value to the end user as 95% of traditional native applications.
Because you can immediately tell who the idiots are. Actual tech people will use the word application. Fake tech people who think they know everything because they used a Google search will say app.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The definition of an application is "a program that gives a computer instructions that provide the user with tools to accomplish a task;" and the definition of a program is "a sequence of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute;"
As far as I'm concerned everything mentioned falls under those definitions. Google provides web apps which are apps taht run on the web just as you'd expect. Their apps aren't websites. Just because it's on the internet doesn't make it a website. Though arguably a web page could be an application by the strictest form of the definition.
Most people I know consider an app a smaller application and an application to be a larger program so even then it's not taking anything away from 'standard' applications. I'm not sure why anyone other than some grumpy old man would get their panties in a wad about this.
Appallingly Problematic Plonker
Suits apple very well
I'm building an applet framework connector. It's a new synergistic paradigm.
Seriously, "application" is such a general term that it never really had much meaning anyway. It basically just means a use for something.
Solution ... to what?
Or Beta.
is "innovation". Can we just retire it already?
Ten years ago the suits got their hands on it and it hasn't been the same since. Most of what is now characterized as such is nothing of the sort.
Really, a whole blog dedicated just to misuse of a single term?
Oh, wait ... no, it's just a single post on an already existing blog ... you're using the term 'blog' incorrectly.
(and then there's the whole issue around the coining of the term 'weblog' in the first place to refer to online journals, as the term that had previously been used to describe the logs from webservers for a years if not a full decade before anyone had ever heard of a 'blog')
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I can list lots of things that are not apps. For that to be possible, "app" must retain some meaning still.
Is the Linux kernel an App? no. (and if you think it is, you are having trouble with definitions)
ps - we were calling CPUs in smartphones and featurephones "Application Processors" long before iPhone came out.
*ahem*
Any time a technical word or prhrased is remodelled to put into common use, it ceases describing anything more than a marketer's idea of why you should give them money.
The cloud, for example, is quickly becoming a concept that lacks a real world basis. When Microsoft commercials have people in airports watching TV and commending the Cloud, it does not refer to the distributed nature of cloud server infrastructure. They are talking about a marketing concept, they could care less how it works, they are only interested in the idea that there is some novel use for their computer that they were actually able to perform.
This use of language is disempowering to all parties, spreads fear and ignorance, and is the basis for most of the worst decisions made in the technology industry. People simply throw around the words in casual disucssion without any real meaning, in order to brag, sound smarter than they are, etc. It's like a cruel practical joke is being played on everyone at the same time: for example, if there's a new version of an OS you happen to use, you have to upgrade because everyone is talking about it. It doesn't matter that it's Windows ME, and it lacks any actual feature upgrades that make it desirable, or that there is an excellent chance it will make your computer unusable. EVERYONE is talking about it and so you should do it. You can brag about your experience afterwards and people's impressions of you will change or be maintained just like if you were talking about a football game, or how the kids are doing, etc.
Only marketers have the power to pull off these kinds of exercises in mass self-delusion. They are like God and the Devil all wrapped up into one nasty package, operating their own little Ministries of Truth.
Is it just me or is the repackaging of material that works perfectly well in a browser as an "app" feel like a step backwards? About 13 years ago I used a small application on my PC for internet banking. This lasted a little over a year before they replaced it with a web/browser based version and while at the time it annoyed me (the browser was slower to load etc..) I eventually got used to it. Step forward to 2011 and my bank is now offering and iphone app. It also has a mobile version of it's website which is only displayed correctly on android devices when the useragent is forced to "iphone", dwhich generally makes the android mobile browser experience better.
An app performs a function, it does not add "functionality" (which is the most abused non-word in Tech, being longer than the real word it too-often replaces).
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
Everything was hyped up to be the next killer app. Console game systems. Programs that ran on Windows boxes. Sigh.
The word "broadband" has been abused to the point where it doesn't have anything to do with the original meaning of the word. What's worse is that the FCC went along with it and gave the word a definition of a specific speed.
I can't stand App either, but at least it's a shortened version of the word "application".
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Until computers came along, the word 'application' largely meant the act of putting something to a particular use.
That's pretty close to what it means in computing - a word processing application is for putting the computer to the use of word processing, an image editing application is for putting the computer to the use of image editing, etc.
This shift in language merely reflects the paradigm shift from the desktop to hand held devices and it's pointing the obvious that "app" and applications can be synonyms (from a technical point of view at least). What's really disgusting though is how an "app" embodies what the mainstream adoption of Idevices has changed in what we usually imply by an "application". Applications are not compiled nor found on one guy's web site, they're born in that magical womb called the "app store"; an application cannot be copied from a device to another - how would that ever be possible (unless there was an app for that?), an application cannot be modified and most importantly it's not an universal computing machine (whatever that means) that runs the application but some magical box with a glossy screen on which I can see the world but never quite understand how it's made.
This makes me think of that last article saying that geeks were now mainstream. So yeah, computer technology has became mainstream and face it, this also means it has became vulgar.
Bringing up the precise definition of a computer jargon term in an audience of millions of neurotic computer nerds? This is like wading into a piranha-filled river wearing a pork-chop bathing suit.
The ability of a browser to execute code in webpages makes it inevitable that eventually we'll have webpages that are behaving as if they were applications. The word isn't being abused, it's evolving.
For that matter, you could argue that the ability of the server-side code to maintain databases and execute code to generate a web page had already made this inevitable. It's just slightly less efficient in some ways than client-side scripting, as it requires a full HTTP request and response for every action. Blackboard (the site all of you recent college students remember using) is a "web application" and it's been around since 1997.
Google's idea of 'apps' are what we quaintly referred to in the good old days as 'bookmarks.'
Back in the 'good old days of bookmarks' we weren't using our browsers to create spreadsheets.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I always thought app was shorthand for applet.
Even in technical jobs 99.9 pct. of the people will never be geeks. Yet everyone calls themselves that.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
(lambda (x) (* x x)) s , now THATS an application!
(Sorry, its been 15 years since I've even thought about lisp and lambda expressions...
A computer is something that... computes. If you write a program you are "applying" that computing power to solve a logical problem. An "Application" is that logic, ready to run on a computer. This definition works with all web applications, desktop applications or "widgets of code" (wha?!) running on an iPhone. I don't see the problem here.
Reminds me of the old days of IE4 with "channels"
To be fair, steve appropriated it when still at NeXT. I remember the phrase "killer app" floating around the next community in the early 90's. Probably from the historical distinction of something.app being an executable bundle wrapper.
The App abbreviated word for Applications was being used long before Apple marketing said app.
Firefox says bookmark, Google says app, Cable-TV for years said broadband for low rate wideband.
Actually marketing-BS is reality only or the wanabees. For the real folks (Geeks, Phreaks...) marketing-BS is a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. So, bookmarks are always bookmarks, apps are always apps, and wideband was never broadband.
Marketing people/reality will never understand technology, and can never make marketing-BS actuality.
Say it loud, "Hype ain't Right!"
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
There are plenty of tech terms that are abused for more regularly than "app." My least favorite is "cloud" or "cloud computing," which is almost entirely devoid of meaning -- I have heard it used to refer to everything from websites and web applications to remote data storage. I have even heard people refer to running internal application servers as "running your own cloud" (what?). At least "app" has something resembling a definition.
Palm trees and 8
I term "app" just makes me cringe. I can't be the only one! It's just so... so Appily! [Apologies to http://www.appily.se/%5D
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
My vote goes to 'cyber', with 'app' and 'cloud computing' tied for a distant second place.
P.S. 'cyber' was the only term flagged by my spell checker in Firefox.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
The latest version of Torrent comes with 'apps'.
The app is the facility to fulfill a function for the user, not the specific implementation of that facility. A computer application is a system which employs one or more computers to solve a problem or provide a service for its end users. That system can be anything. Whatever it is, that is the implementation of the application.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I see what you did there...
That's a pretty good app. What about spinach and artichoke dip?
I just realized FOAD can be represented in an IPv6 address...
2001:F0AD:A99:C10D:BEEF:CAKE::1111
In all seriousness the word "cloud" gets my vote for the most overloaded, useless and frankly annoying word. It is right up there with the ever meaningless "Web 2.0".. and "AJAX". "App" in my view has yet to have its meaning bifurcated sufficiently to be considered in the same light.
Cloud = Care bears
Cloud = ATM/Frame
Cloud = Internet or any network element outside of your administrative control.
Cloud = Colo/hosting provider
Cloud = Grid computing
Cloud = SAAS App
Maybe once application got shortened to app, some parties conflated applets with apps.
Anyone who is the slightest bit tech savvy knows that app is just short for application, and application means just about any standalone program that isn't explicitly coded to be a part of another existing program (which would be something like a plug-in). Apple used the term correctly in their marketing, as all these little programs are indeed applications.
The problem is that the people who make up the majority of Apple Culture are technologically retarded and misuse tech related words all the time. When all these people misuse a word in tandem it begins to shape itself into another meaning entirely.
I've heard people call web pages apps, and not even the kind that are almost apps (like the web version of ms office), just plain old regular web pages. Power Point presentations and the "guide" button on a comcast remote are now apps according to these kind of people.
App I can deal with. Cloud, on the other hand...
"App" is not a tech word. It's an abbreviation that geeks have used for well over a decade which has become commonplace, commercialized
The worst words (and abbreviations) in IT are:
* "QA/QC"
* "just get it done"
* "I know you've got a lot to do, but..."
These things lead to leadership failure, on account of projects not meeting deadlines and repeated performance issues. If you rush shit, shit breaks.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
"App" means there's a chance that you'll be asked to pay for it, and that a lot of you actually will.
The holy grail of the commercialization of the internet has finally been crafted.
The Killer App - the application that made the platform (ie, Halo is a killer app for the XBOX). I heard references to this even back in the 90s... apparently the first known reference was an article in '89 wondering about OS/2 killer applications.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Shouldn't we start to replace the word 'blog' with the word 'rant'? Blogs used to be a snapshot of daily affairs, but now some people are using them to push uninformed agendas and promote their 'A-List' websites. Ever notice how when you attach the term 'pro' to something to do with computers, it becomes anything but..
But why restrict these to Chrome?
So that the Chrome OS (browser?) can use the Nacl to extend the functionality of web apps, an interface not (and never likely to be) supported by other browsers. Providing a secure yet open platform for both developers and computer users that might have a fighting chance to beat malware and viruses.
Is Google paying these companies to promote these sites as “Chrome apps”, perhaps?
Why would Google pay somebody to promote their website / app? It's far more likely that the companies are paying Google to promote their "Chrome apps" or still more likely that the apps will be charged for, and both parties take a small cut from the profits.
Yes, Google does offer the opportunity to create “packaged apps”, with content that can be run when the browser’s offline, but trying to pass off bookmarks as “apps” is a little too close to snake oil for my liking.
So an Apple app .. because it has to be written in Objective C and lives in a walled garden is the proper definition of an App? There are lots and lots of software applications which run through browsers. With the new advent of 3D graphics interfaces to the browser, pretty soon we're gonna see lots and lots more applications (games for all platforms anyone?) running from browsers. And if the Google app store matures and Chrome's browser share continues to rise.. probably a lot of 'App's making use of Nacl to provide better end user facility.
The article reads like someone saying "I don't get it" very loud and clear. The only question it leaves me asking is, who's smarter.. Google or the guy who wrote this blog entry?
The thing is, only nerds care how a certain functionality is realised behind the scenes.
Thunderbird is a locally installed program that lets me read and/or write email. Gmail is a web-program that lets me do the same thing.
Why should a user care about the distinction ? Think from the perspective of what he wants to do: "I want to see if I've got any emails". An app is defined by functionality, not by implementation.
If something is a web-page or a locally installed program is to the end-user almost as irrelevant as if it's written in C++ or Java - he doesn't care.
When I said "almost", it's because the user *does* care about availability - if a program works only with a network-link, then that's relevant to the user. (but checking email works only with a link ANYWAY)
It was and still is acronym called "PC" which stands for "Personal Computer". Everybody however misuse it when they mean combination of IBM-PC/Intel specific hardware and Microsoft software platforms such as MS-DOS and Windows. I am having hard time with people whom use "This software is available for PC/Linux/Mac" tagline. First of all PC is general computer type, something which all Macintosh branded personal computers are, something what all Commodore Amiga branded personal computers are, and so on. IBM didn't invent "PC". Next thing is that "Linux" is just a name of kernel (when written with a capital "L"). Mac is short version of Macintosh which is a brand of personal computers company called Apple manufactures. Why can't we just refer all platform by their respective software platforms. Why do we need to include branding of the hardware? It's totally unnecessary and confusing. World would be much better place if that same tag would be "Windows; GNU/Linux; Mac OS X" (or something like that). Only things I would miss are stupid Mr. PC versus Mr. Amiga/Linux/Mac/Nerd/Gamer/etc. videos where people compare various hardware, software, toy, etc. things even if they aren't comparable.
Of course use of "App" instead of a "Application" is unfortunate but I don't really mind it unless somebody starts mixing up facts. For example Apple's "App Store" is _application store_. I hate when people refer to it with "app store called "App Store"". That's just grammatically bad language.
On my own behalf I feel that "applications" are more finer and simplier packages which are generally more suitable for main stream audiences. "Programs" are some what older like, cruder, more hacker stylish, not necessarily generally suitable for main stream audiences. But that's just like my opinion. I think that United States english tends to refer to "applications" while British english tends to refer to "programs".
The most misused word these days is 3D, as in 3D screen. It should be called stereo screen. 3D technology has been around since the beginning of the 80s. The new thing is that so called tvs do not display one image, but 2 images, one for each eye. When TV is holographic, that's when they can call it 3D! Wait a minute, the subject of the post is Apps? oh well! ...
Technically, web sites are self-contained pieces of software, "... written to fulfill a particular purpose of the user" (according to dictionary) ... with hyperlinks to other "pages" within themselves or to other websites. The easiest "apps" to build for the smart-phones simply open a web page. It doesn't make them less of an "Application," when compared to the Linux command `yes`...
==_-+- Steve
No really. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/11iphone.html http://web.archive.org/web/20071011225255/http://www.apple.com/webapps/
Fandroids hate facts.
In the future, we are all one app.
The medium is the extreme.
This topic has all the usual /. goodness. Pedantic, Pointless and Puerile. So I'll join the fray...
Application meant something before computers, at least since the late 15th century in the meaning of "bringing something to bear on something else". An application on a device, in my opinion, has always been "some concrete way of applying what the system offers to a problem". Bringing what the system offers to bear on the problem at hand, to closely match the dictionary definition.
What you call an application simply changes based on what you view as "the system" and what you'd consider "the problem" that the user needs solved. A bookmark to google.com might seem like an application if "the problem" is to find something on the web and you view the device and the browser together as integral parts of "the system". The browser itself might be considered an application if you deem accessing the web "the problem" and the device with its OS "the system". A browser is generally more than an application, since it serves its own purpose (browsing the web) but in most cases also extends the functionality of the system as a whole (allowing urls to be launched and transferring the user to web-based applications).
Not everything is an application though. For example, I would never consider a hardware driver an application, since it does nothing but extend the technical possibilities of the system, enabling applications to solve new problems.
Of course, words change meaning over time and the word "application" appeared to have a very specific meaning in computer science for some time, but if anything, the current change is one towards the more general and original meaning of the word.
App or Cloud. It's definitely one of those.
I'm pretty sure "cloud" is actually (presently) the most abused word in IT. Recent Microsoft ads would have us believe that remoting to a desktop over the Internet and photo editing are now all possible thanks to the cloud. And execs talk about putting web apps and email in the cloud--what we used to just call hosting things on da Internet. There are few words as misunderstood as cloud right now.
Fine, what about "web app"? That came around before "iPhone app", and that's more or less what google's talking about. This is marketing, words get thrown around everywhere all the time. The answer to your question is: Any more? The word "app" NEVER really meant anything.
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.