Gujarati Boy-Baby name from R

Some applications are available in versions for several different platforms; others only work on one and are thus called, for example. an application for Sometimes a new and popular application arises which only runs on one , increasing the desirability of that platform. This is called killer app. For example, VisiCalc was the first modern software for the Apple II and helped selling the then-new into offices. For Blackberry it was their software.

In recent years, the shortened term "app" (coined in 1981 or earlier has become population, the shortened form matching their typically smaller scope compared to applications on PCs. Even more recently, the shortened version is used for desktop application software as well.

There are many different ways to divide up different types of application software, and several are explained here.

Since the development and near-universal adoption of the , an important distinction that has emerged has been between — written with and other web-native technologies and typically requiring one to be online and running a , and the more traditional native applications written in whatever languages are available for one's particular type of computer. There has been a contentious debate in the computing community regarding web applications replacing native applications for many purposes, especially on mobile devices such as and . Web apps have indeed greatly increased in popularity for some uses, but the advantages of applications make them unlikely to disappear soon, if ever. Furthermore, the two can be complementary, and even integrated.