I fought hard against that for years. I still only use ‘app’ for phone programs, but I stopped correcting people every time they used the term for anything else. It isn’t technically wrong, but it grates on my nerves for some reason.
Windows is the first thing I can think of that used the word “application” in that way, I think even back before Windows could be considered an OS (and had a dependency on MS-DOS). Back then, the Windows API referred to the Application Programming Interface.
Common dialog boxes make it easier for you to develop applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system. A common dialog box is a dialog box that an application displays by calling a single function rather than by creating a dialog box procedure and a resource file containing a dialog box template.
I fought hard against that for years. I still only use ‘app’ for phone programs, but I stopped correcting people every time they used the term for anything else. It isn’t technically wrong, but it grates on my nerves for some reason.
Windows is the first thing I can think of that used the word “application” in that way, I think even back before Windows could be considered an OS (and had a dependency on MS-DOS). Back then, the Windows API referred to the Application Programming Interface.
Here’s a Windows 3.1 programming guide from 1992 that freely refers to programs as applications:
Goddamn …. That is a thing of horrific beauty. I saved it immediately.
(I’m a technical writer so it should be fun to go through this ancient tome)
I don’t have a single problem with the word “application”