Apps. Gerard Goggin

Apps - Gerard Goggin


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earliest instances of the word “app” and its plural “apps”; these occurred in Computerworld magazine in the early 1980s. “Killer app” is a term recorded as appearing in the late 1980s. It was short for “killer application,” meaning something indispensable or without a rival (OED). As software and computing historian Martin Campbell-Kelly explains, “[t]he ‘killer app’ hypothesis argues that a novel application, by enabling an activity that was previously impossible or too expensive, causes a new technology to become widely adopted” (Campbell-Kelly, 2003, p. 212). The moniker “killer app” was applied for instance to VisiCalc. VisiCalc was an application launched in 1979 that brought the spreadsheet to personal computing, paving the way for the PC to be taken seriously as a business tool (pp. 212–214). For some time, “apps” designated a diverse range of software applications for desktop or enterprises computers, handhelds (such as the Palm), Internet and web apps, and then, increasingly, mobile phones. For instance, applications for the mobile Internet wireless access protocol (WAP) were sometimes referred to as “WAP apps.” At this stage, though, “mobile apps” could still refer mostly to applications and design solutions for mobile hardware and devices—not necessarily just to software.

      As we shall see, apps really became a household word from 2008 onwards. To understand how this app moment came about, we’ll shortly have a look at some of the kinds of technologies, social developments, and media cultures that created the conditions for apps to become a household word. In the meanwhile, let’s see how apps work as a technology.

      As software, apps cannot work without hardware. The key hardware for apps is the smartphone. The smartphone combines three previously separate functions: cellular mobile telecommunications; mobile Internet; and mobile computing. If you dismantle a smartphone, you will find a CPU (central processing unit). This is a computer chip that is typically integrated into a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) SoC (system-on-a-chip) application processor. You will also find a power source in the form of a rechargeable battery. There will be one or more antennae (transducers) for receiving and transmitting data via electromagnetic waves in order to handle a range of different signals from cellular networks, Bluetooth, WiFi (wireless fidelity), the GPS (global positioning system), or NFC (near field communication). These may not all be housed in the same chip, but rather crammed into the device housings. Added to which, the antennae may be all in use at once, to help run apps across one, two, or all GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular mobile, and other networks (Hu & Tanner, 2018).

      Smartphones have grown considerably in sophistication and capabilities, operating as they do at the frontiers of material science and technology, engineering, and computing, as well as interface, user experience, and other user-oriented disciplines. The hardware ensemble offered by smartphones provides a generative “base” or “matrix” for what apps can and cannot do. Apps have sent smartphones into the stratosphere as a consumer technology, so the software very much maketh the device. Conversely, for all their real and imaginary potential, apps remain anchored in the materialities of devices, their social contexts, and what users make of them.

      While synonymous with mobile communication, apps are also used with a growing range of other hardware. Many mobile apps are adapted and deployed for desktop and laptop computer use, and vice-versa. Leading brands, from Microsoft through Apple to Google, make a virtue of the fact that their apps work across the ecosystem of devices—especially the troika of mobile, tablet, and desktops or laptops. Other hardware for which apps have been systematically developed and widely used are tablets, TV sets, and watches and other “wearables.” Apps also feature in technologies such as cars, fridges, homes, gaming devices, VR headsets, and voice-activated devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. With the developments referred to as the Internet of Things, apps have acquired the potential to be designed for and installed in a range of low-power devices. They need to be customized for particular kinds of equipment and configurations, as each technology has different characteristics, architecture, affordances, contexts, and uses.


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