There was a time that I would have agreed that an "app" is, in essence, a minimal application designed to perform a simple, narrowly circumscribed task. The dis

There was a time that I would have agreed that an "app" is, in essence, a minimal application designed to perform a simple, narrowly circumscribed task. The distinction was natural because this was about the level of sophistication of most software that the average user would encounter on a mobile device, all of which were sold through "app stores." (And app stores sold only apps, thus defined.) Since then, however, I have found that the definition has more to do with the purchase/installation process than the functionality of the product itself. The emerging definition that I perceive is that an "app" is something purchased and installed through an "app store." App stores are environments that greatly reduce the normal friction involved with purchasing and installing an application such that this can all be accomplished without leaving the app store interface and without the user's being required to enter any configuration information. (This step, if it is necessary, is typically reserved for when the app is first run.) Uninstallation of an app is similarly streamlined (or, at least, a user expects it to be...). Apps are also not typically conceived of as running in windows. They are presented full-screen with no OS-chrome. This is an obvious hold-over from the demands of the mobile-device environment. An obvious counterpoint is Steam, which would seem to meet all of these criteria. This anomaly is perhaps explainable on the basis that it pre-dates the modern app store and, thus, users' expectations of it are not framed by the mobile environment as they are in other ecosystems. The fact that it typically is used only for PC games helps with this differentiation. It is worth pointing out, though, that Steam does sell non-game software, though to my knowledge it is not terribly successful in doing so. This lack of success might be attributable to its failure, in this capacity, to comply with the symbology of the app/application distinction that users have come to internalize.