Overview Of Apps: Definition, History, Types
What is an app
An app, or an abbreviation of “application”, is a piece of software that can be downloaded and installed on many electronic devices, such as, smartphones, computers, tablets, smart TV’s and many more. The term app originally referred to any mobile or desktop application, but as more app stores have emerged to sell mobile apps to smartphone and tablet users, the term has evolved to refer to small programs that can be downloaded and installed all at once.
Even though the majority of the apps can be downloaded for free, a small percentage of the apps in the market with more features of the free one’s, can be purchased from an app store.
Web app
A web app is a client-server software program that is stored on a remote server and accessed through a web browser. Web apps can be accessed from multiple electronic devices as long as they are responsively designed. In addition, web apps require an active internet connection in order to support the human-computer interaction. Web apps can be accessed directly through an internet browser and do not require any additional software to be downloaded and installed to the device.
History of Web apps
In the early days of the Internet, the World Wide Web consisted only of websites. Those websites were typically information repositories containing static documents. The majority of those websites did not authenticate users since each user was treated in the same way and was presented with the same static information. In 1995, JavaScript was introduced, a client-side scripting language which allowed developers to add more dynamic elements in the websites thus increasing the interactivity between the user and the website. The concept of “web application” was introduced in 1999 where Java programming language was updated with further functionality so it can enhance the websites response time and content loading from the server.
Mobile app
A mobile app is a software application developed explicitly for use on small, wireless computing devices, such as smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, rather than desktop or laptop computers. Most commonly, mobile apps serve to provide users with similar services to those accessed on computers. In addition, mobile apps must be downloaded and installed from an app store in order for the user to use them. Moreover, many mobile apps do not require an active internet connection in order to operate because the mobile apps run directly on to the mobile device rather than a mobile web browser.
History of Mobile apps
One of the first apps created was the game “Snake”, introduced in 1998 as a pre-loaded game on Nokia phones. Before the “Snake” game, most of the phones had a primitive version of apps, like, clock, calendar, simple calculator and contacts book, which didn’t support the user interaction the game “Snake” brought to the table.
In 2007, a giant leap towards the evolution of mobile apps was the announcement of the first iPhone. In 2008, one year after the announcement of the first iPhone, Apple’s app store went online hosting more than 550 apps for download, with over 10. 000. 000 downloads in the first week. Most of the apps hosted in the app store supported the user interaction that previous versions couldn’t do, for example, online games with live chat, high speed face calls, blog style apps and many more.
Popular educational apps
At the moment, there are many free and paid educational apps where people can learn to code or learn a new programming language. The majority of those apps provide their users with high quality material or online courses to learn from, and an open forum where their users can discuss, ask and answer programming related questions. Some of those apps are:
- SoloLearn: SoloLearn is a free online and mobile learning platform that offers free coding classes in 13 different programming languages. The learning content is mostly created by the SoloLearn team, and a small percentage from contributors.
- Programming Hub: Programming Hub is a mobile app which offers their users both free and paid online programming courses in over 18 programming languages. All of the courses are created by the Programming Hub team in collaboration with Google experts.
- Udemy: Udemy is an online learning platform which offers/sells their users free and paid online courses in almost every programming language available at the moment. What is unique at Udemy is that every online course is created by online content creators and not by its own staff.
- Stack Overflow: Stack Overflow is the largest online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. More than 50 million professional and aspiring programmers visit Stack Overflow each month to help solve coding problems, develop new skills, and find job opportunities.
