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Searching Ngram viewer for "killer app" says maybe: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=killer+app http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=killer+app
by wooster 16y ago
Searching Ngram viewer for "killer app" says maybe:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=killer+app http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=killer+app
It's hard to establish a causal relationship though. Most of the uses of "app" prior to that were shortened versions of "application" as in the "I submitted a job app." sense.
Coming from working at Apple from 2003-2008, we used "app" all the time to refer to software. From that perspective, it seemed like a NeXT thing.
(As an aside, isn't it awesome we live in a time when a tool exists to research word usage across hundreds of years worth of books? Hooray to the future!)
- derrida 16y agoHow was the word "app" used 1650-1700? http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=app%2C+applications&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=app%2C+applicatio... Maybe Jobs didn't invent it after all?!
- sambeau 16y ago:) Actually, if you look at the results it's merely an artefact of scanning problems. The gothic 'r' seems to be being misread in words like 'apprehend' http://www.google.com/search?q=%22app%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1671,cd_max:1689&lr=lang_en http://www.google.com/search?q=%22app%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1... if you do a similar search for 'ehend' you see a graph showing the usage of gothic dying out! http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=ehend&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3 http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=ehend&year_st... clicking through shows lots of "app-ehend" and "app/ehend"
- derrida 16y ago+1. Awesome!
- _delirium 16y agoIf you run the search on Google Books, there are definitely 80s usages, though not as many as in the 90s or 2000s: http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22killer+app%22&tbs=,cdr:1,cd_min:Jan%203_2%201,cd_max:Dec%2031_2%201989&num=10 http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=%22kill...