7 ms·

I had naively thought the term “Apps” was coined by Apple during the initial iPhone release, as it had been called “Applications” on the Mac ever since the time

• fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  “App” is the obvious abbreviation of application, I think the iPhone sort of publicized it, but I’ve always used phrases like “spinning up a new app” even with things like Delphi in the 90s
  • fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Wiktionary has a cite for the phrase “killer app” in ‘99 https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/app https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/app
  • fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    This version of the jargon file from 1990 has an entry for “app” http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt
  • ncmncm 6y ago
    Calling computer programs "applications" is a neologism. Once that catches, shortening to "apps" is automatic and happens everywhere at once, somewhat the way programs became "proggies" in places. Some of us are still cheesed at having our old, comfortable programs re-branded to dodgy new applications: "Programs run, applications crash."
    • fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      “Applications” doesn’t seem to be particularly new to me: e.g., Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools like Delphi and Visual Basic were fairly popular in the 90s. And, the jargon file attests to the use of the term to signify programs for non-developers going as far back as 90: http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt
      • fit2rule 6y ago
        In the 80's, I wasted far too much time writing PROGRESS 4GL "Applications", which was 4GL code applied to a particular database ..
      • ncmncm 6y ago
        The suits tried to get people calling what they sold "applications" right from the beginning. "Nobody will pay for a program, but they will pay anything for an application." Back then, an application was, literally, what you were using the computer to get done: a spreadsheet would be a program, budgeting an application. The suits bought and sold "applications"; users ran programs. Then Eternal September happened, there were too few to push back, and all the other stuff paying customers used to demand--training, printed manuals, not crashing all the damn time--fell away, and finally the program became, itself, the whole application. Then the users needed an abbreviation for what it was that was crashing: the "app".
• tom_ 6y ago
  GEM ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment) ) treated files with the .APP extension as programs.
• Avshalom 6y ago
  fun thing: executable application folders like in OSX were a RiscOS thing.
  • qubex 6y ago
    And a NeXT thing.
    • gindely 6y ago
      Well, on MacOS they come straight from NeXT so it's no big deal. But what's interesting is that they were on other systems in the 80s too - whereas in the 2000s they were one of the things that made people say MacOS is better than anything else, since only they have these special folders.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      And the original Mac had a very similar concept with a single file that had an embedded resource fork. And even DOS applications were very often distributed as single folders with all the application files in them, you just needed to run the actual binary manually. The idea that one-object = one-application is at least as old as desktop computing itself because it fits seamlessly into the file/folder metaphor. Sadly, modern desktops have largely degraded in this regard.
• kabdib 6y ago
  We used the term in Newton, circa 1991.
  • kabdib 6y ago
    ... and a peer here mentions that the term existed in GEM as well. I worked on that a bit, too. Guess I forgot :-)
• ksherlock 6y ago
  iOS .app was inherited from OS X .app which was inherited from NeXTStep .app, circa 1988.