Just reading I get the feeling that there may be overlap. What is the difference between down-loadable ‘‘apps’’ and down-loadable ‘‘widgets’’?
Widgets are typically a component of an app that reside on your home screen. They are usually interactive and one (or many) functions can be performed by interacting with it on the home screen. Toggling WiFi on/off is an example of this. Usually it’ll appear in the form of a “switch” on the home screen that can be toggled just by pressing it.
An app is short for application, which is the actual program that is stored on your phone. Usually, opening an app results in a new screen altogether, complete with options, functions, displays, etc. A game, like Angry Birds, for example, is an app. A widget would be a weather app that shows the temperature and such right there on the home screen (but updates all by itself). Typically, pressing a widget launches the full-scale app with a lot more features.
YMMV with all of this. This is typically what I encounter.
It used to be, at least, that a widget was more of a display than a program, and was a rectangle appearing on the screen. So, a widget has a size and a color and so forth. An app is a program. Apps often create widgets to communicate with you.
Generally - branding, I think.
Traditionally, in computer programming, widgets are relatively simple - generally interactive - graphical elements* that can be combined into an overall user interface for a program, while an app (application) is a stand-alone program that can be run continuously, at the user’s request or automatically/periodically that may or may not allow user interaction using widgets.
In mobile/phone programming, widgets tend to be slightly more powerful than the traditional definition suggests to the point that the graphical/interactive interface of some applications are done almost exclusively through a single widget on the “main screen”, but I think the definitions are still fairly useful.
- in this definition, things like text input fields, icons, buttons, sliders etc are widgets.
“Widgets” are those things that Android has and iOS doesn’t.
