Ask HN: is App an Apple word?

8 points

15 years ago

There's a discussion going on over at Slashdot about the word App. I'm finding it all a re-write of history. As far as I remember it it went more like this.

* Apple pre-1996 never referred to apps, just Applications. Neither did anyone else.

* Sun, with Java, had Applets. I don't recall them ever being shortened to 'apps'

* When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 he brought with him the term 'App'. I remember cringing every time he said it in a Keynote.

My theory is that it's a NeXT term derived from the .app extension. But for this to be true NextStep would have needed .app bundles too (and I can't remember if it did). If not it could also be from the early days of OSX.

EDIT: It seems that NeXTSTEP did have Application Bundles as I had thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Bundle

Does anyone have any concrete evidence why this isn't the case?

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