(disclaimer, I'm a Microsoft employee and this is only my opinion).

There's an important distinction which often don't see discussed when this topic comes up: It can be very dangerous to install a program on your machine, but an 'app' comes with some assurance. People often think of the app store as a method for MS to grab your money, but in my opinion it fixes many of the installation/deployment problems that have existed on windows since... 95?

'Programs' typically require an MSI for installation. You'd better know, and trust, the MSI before you give it the required administrative privileges it needs to run, because a rogue MSI can absolutely own your machine.

On the other hand, 'Apps' declare what they are going to do to your machine via the manifest, so you kind of know what you are getting into before your install. The apps are sandboxed, so they have limited ability to tamper with your machine, and they can be uninstalled in a more uniform fashion.

In short, I feel much better telling my Grandma that she can install an 'App', but i'm much less confident telling her that it's ok to install a program via Installer.MSI.

This sounds nice and reasonable, but I think it's a post hoc explanation that doesn't quite work. Look at the language in the linked article. It talks about converting my "Win32 apps" into "Universal Windows Platform apps". But those legacy programs aren't "apps" within the meaning you've laid out.

I'll confess ignorance over what exactly the converter does, or how it does it. I don't know anything more than what was announced today. The article says that it converts win32/.net apps into appx packages, and I'd assume that this does encompass 'the meaning that I've laid out'.

It does. It sandboxes the filesystem and registry as well.

gp uses 'app' the way you did, presumably to mean UWP application. Win32 apps are "programs"/"applications" written using the Win32 api. I don't think there's anything post-hoc in the explanation other than the use of the word "app".

In my mind an app is a sandboxed, focused thing that lives in a single window and behind a single launcher icon. application or program or any other older term from before iOS introduced "apps" could be a collection of a half-dozen different entries in your start menu, or an application like GIMP that scatters a bunch of different windows around your screen. "App" implies a level of simplicity.

App has been short for "application" since at least the DOS days, when Lotus 1-2-3 was frequently called the PC's "killer app".

yes, but the meaning of words can change over time.

You're decades late on this. "App" has been used as a shorthand way to refer to programs for a loooong time. Random example, Apple had an object oriented framework called MacApp in 1985.

To me, "app" was just short for "application", and it usually implied something more than a program. A program was more of an individual binary and its data files. An application could be a suite of programs; basically, it was a superset of "program" that could include multiple binaries acting toward a common purpose.

An "App" (mobile-style) is a new word. It implies (again, to me) a sandboxed program with a simplified, single-window, full-screen UI.

The same 3 letters (app) have been used my entire life to refer to computer programs, but the connotation has shifted a lot.

It seems pretty constant to me. It has always meant a user-facing program that's largely self-contained. It's not synonymous with "program," but since this story is about converting stuff for the Windows Store, I think it's being used correctly here.

But outside of the Apple world program was most commonly used. It took the rise of the iPhone for app to displace program.

This makes sense. The tight knit NeXT community used the "app" meme regularly staring at least in 1990 if not sooner.

App is shorter than Application or Program. Language evolves as well.

Whitelisting permissions instead of blacklisting them, hopefully.

As far as I know, that is the main difference: apps are sandboxed programs which you can easily install and deinstall without affecting the rest of the system.

Or...?

Fairly sure it is just short for application.

They used to be called apps when we made them for J2ME phones. Symbian apps were not sandboxed, but J2ME ones were, and this was the majority. Later on apple brought sandboxed apps to the iphone.

And no-one knew what an app was back then, most seemed surprised that a person even made the games they played on their phones.

In Germany by the way "app" almost always means "mobile app", while desktop apps are still being called "Programme" aka programs in English.

A couple of days ago, I was thinking how rare we use program word now. web apps, mobile apps, standalone apps...

Laziness?

program is kinda hard to say because of the 2 r's.

App implies microsoft gets a monopoly on control and distribution (as well as revocation), ie app store, ie walled garden. It also implies you should expect it to not be open source, and you should expect to pay at least $0.99 for it.

You can distribute universal Windows apps outside the Windows Store.

If your customers check a setting called “side-loading” in "Updates & Security" under "For developers" with a fairly scary warning, then yes you can sell outside the Windows Store.

Nope. Now you can double-click the appx file. Demonstrated on Build keynote.

Well, that's a whole lot nicer than their website is currently telling me. I did look for updated instructions as this has been a bit of issue with contractor supplied software.

These settings are about digital signatures of applications.

Yes, they've been trailing that for a while. Do you know if there's any kind of legally-binding commitment to keep this option open, or might this be a temporary thing while they try to get some traction for the platform?

I'm sure it's not legally binding, but neither is Apple's letting people run unsigned applications or even signed applications from outside the app store.

MS seems pretty serious about trying to get developers on board with their platform. I can't imagine them reversing course on this, especially with "Tim Sweeney is wrong about everything, UWP is an open platform" being a recurring subtext of the keynote.

You mean programs?

No, I mean apps. I'm just as lazy as anybody else, and I don't see a need to use an older word with an extra syllable and a bunch of baggage just to show off that I was using computers before the iPhone came out.

If they were distributed as .programx files instead of .appx files, maybe you'd have a point.

So when the IPhone came out, the word 'program' was changed to 'app'?

In popular usage, pretty much.

I'd object more if it were something like "nuculer" where we're adding in wrong letters to pronounce it wrong, but I really don't care if something is an "app" or a "program".

As far as connotations go, "app" tends to mean a simple single-purpose piece of software, and "program" is an all encompassing legacy blob that takes a dump in 40 different folders because it can't keep its shit together. Not always true, but still what I think of. I tend to use the words that way when the software in question falls into one category or the other.

Will I call Forza an app because it's on the store? Eh, maybe. I'll probably call it a game (does anybody call those "programs"?). Would I call AutoCAD an app if they started distributing it as a UWP package? Less certain. Maybe not. Skype? Absolutely.

Even before the iPhone came out, people used the abbreviation "app" for "application".

Source: I was around then ;)

True, especially with OS X having .app file extensions. I still called them "Applications" more often than not though.

Oh, so it's like a Mac thing. So why do we have to call Windows programs 'App'?

It's not a Mac-only thing, it has been used on Linux and Windows for decades.

http://www.drdobbs.com/windows/windows-apps-and-exception-ha...

But did they use "app" instead of "program"?