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mard | 4 years ago

It's weird to see the term "App" in relation to anything before iOS era. Back then such software used to be mostly called applications or just programs. [1]

[1] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=app%2Ccomputer...

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redwall_hp|4 years ago

I definitely remember hearing the phrase "killer app" plenty of times in the early 2000s, and Macworld definitely shortened "application" to "app" frequently in the late 90s and early 2000s.

weinzierl|4 years ago

I heard app the first time in connection with "killer app", before I only remember the term "program". If my memory serves me right I heard "killer app" the first time in the late 90s

fistynuts|4 years ago

RISC OS was using the term App from around 1987 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS), to describe an executable collection of files wrapped up in a folder. The folder had to start with a "!" to distinguish it as an app rather than a standard folder.

hellbannedguy|4 years ago

It’s weird. They were called programs. Startups were called businesses.

I find it weird how generations need to change words. I guess Startup was new, and unconventional? For a few seconds they were? Then they got real slick with MBA’s?

cblconfederate|4 years ago

It's good, it shows that the newer generation is invested in the same things, and they want to build their own culture. However, i m afraid the "app" culture is all about marketing, addictiveness and locking-in users, not about making faster bicycles for the mind

cblconfederate|4 years ago

Yeah now even microsoft has renamed "programs" to "apps" in windows. On the one hand it s bad because they are all programs made by programmers who know programming, and it's all that people need to know. OTOH , it's kinda good that the status of mobile apps is equated with ordinary desktop apps, because it makes users realize that their walled garden is needlessly walled.

ConceptJunkie|4 years ago

Microsoft is inconsistent with this. At one point, based on my understanding, "programs" meant traditional Windows apps and "apps" meant those "Modern" Windows 8 apps that they tried to foist on us. Then, at some point, it seems "apps" came to mean any application. Of course, Microsoft hasn't had consistency for a long time.

In some ways, I miss the Microsoft of the 80s and 90s. Sure, they were totally evil, but at least they made good UIs.

mpweiher|4 years ago

NeXTstep applications (and by extension macOS, iOS) have been directories (bundles) with the extension ".app" since at least 1988.