Microsoft have been calling discrete computer programs “applications” since at least the Windows 95 era, when Program Manager was replaced with the start menu. They’ve been inconsistently kinda-sorta doing so since even Windows 3.x, maybe even more, but nobody was closely paying attention back then.
It didn’t become the current situation of monkey-see-monkey-do until Apple started using the terminology heavily with the iPhone, as you have observed. But they actually cribbed it from good old M$, much as they’ve cribbed basically everything else they’ve done in the modern era from someone else and simply painted it glossy white.
Program is such a funny word when you remember it’s an analogy from radio and TV. Radio and TV are just delivery mechanisms for programs, which are the content and point of the medium.
You could define a podcast as an internet-delivered audio program.
Something like 20 years ago, i assumed that every generation that comes after mine, will be so much better with computers, because they grow up with it. So that’s not true at all as it turns out. I remember working with 20is year old guys together and they they mostly had iphones. They told me that they are also into computers, gaming and stuff like that. The more i talked to them the more i realised that they have no idea what i was talking about. I explained one of them how to do a thing on his phone and he was super lost. It was worse thN explaining my mom something. He kept asking where he finds the app i’m talking about and i kept telling him that it’s not an app, it’s something you do on the phone. Yeah i get that, but i don’t have the app for that.
It grinds my gears that programs are called ‘apps’ now. On phones it was normalized immediately, so, sure. Computers run programs, though, god dammit.
I feel this.
Microsoft have been calling discrete computer programs “applications” since at least the Windows 95 era, when Program Manager was replaced with the start menu. They’ve been inconsistently kinda-sorta doing so since even Windows 3.x, maybe even more, but nobody was closely paying attention back then.
It didn’t become the current situation of monkey-see-monkey-do until Apple started using the terminology heavily with the iPhone, as you have observed. But they actually cribbed it from good old M$, much as they’ve cribbed basically everything else they’ve done in the modern era from someone else and simply painted it glossy white.
Why? What is the functional difference between an application and a program?
Program is such a funny word when you remember it’s an analogy from radio and TV. Radio and TV are just delivery mechanisms for programs, which are the content and point of the medium.
You could define a podcast as an internet-delivered audio program.
In the UK, “programme” is used for events, TV shows, and schedules, while “program” is specifically used in computing contexts.
Something like 20 years ago, i assumed that every generation that comes after mine, will be so much better with computers, because they grow up with it. So that’s not true at all as it turns out. I remember working with 20is year old guys together and they they mostly had iphones. They told me that they are also into computers, gaming and stuff like that. The more i talked to them the more i realised that they have no idea what i was talking about. I explained one of them how to do a thing on his phone and he was super lost. It was worse thN explaining my mom something. He kept asking where he finds the app i’m talking about and i kept telling him that it’s not an app, it’s something you do on the phone. Yeah i get that, but i don’t have the app for that.