As we reported earlier this week, Apple is busy sending out cease and desist letters to small, defenceless projects to defend its trademark application (it doesn’t actually own the trademark yet) for ‘app store’. This has prompted many a discussion over the trademarkability of such a generic term, and over the origins of the abbreviation ‘app’. Who came up with it? How old is it? To my surprise – the abbreviation is much older than you’d think, and in a way, it illustrates quite well the demise of the programmer. What? Read on.
Before we get started with this history lesson – let me remind you that this article is not about invalidating or otherwise making any claims about the validity of Apple’s application for the ‘app store’ trademark. Not only is this article about the abbreviation ‘app’ (and not ‘app atore’), trademark regulations are complicated, and I honestly don’t want to dwell too much on something as silly as this little dispute. As someone interested in language (it’s my source of income), I am fascinated by the origins of ‘app’ – nothing more, nothing less.
Let’s get started, shall we?
Oxford, thou failst me
Since we’re talking about a decidedly English term, there is only one authoritative source that really matters when it comes to finding out what its origins are: the Oxford English Dictionary. Through my faculty, I have online access to the full Oxford English Dictionary, which logically was my first point of reference. The OED defines ‘app’ as follows:
Pronunciation: Brit. /ap/, U.S. /~A|p/
Etymology: Shortened < application n.Computing colloq.
An application, esp. an application program. Also freq. in killer app n.
This we knew – but the great thing about the Oxford English Dictionary is that they list the earliest known usage (to them, at least). This is the first starting point when it comes to the history of the abbreviation – and according to the OED, the earliest known usage was in 1985, in a product name… From Apple. In July 29 of that year, Info World wrote about MacApp.
The essence of the new wave of evangelism for Apple and IBM is to provide software developers with the tools they need to reduce software development time, a costly and labor-intensive process. One step in that direction is Apple’s recent beta testing of the new programming tools called Mac App, developed at apple by Larry Tesler. This is a Smalltalk shell that goes on top of Lisa Pascal and reduces program development time by providing frequently used components of the operating system.
I had trouble actually finding any references to this product, until people pointed out that the set of tools is actually called MacApp in horrid camel case – something publications in that day and age could still correct without unleashing the wrath of corporate America and its fanboys (I would ban camel case from OSAlert if it weren’t for the obvious backlash we’d endure).
MacApp was, according to Wikipedia at least, arguably the first object oriented application framework, first released in 1985. It was a descendant from the Lisa Toolkit, was developed by Larry Tessler, and was based on Apple’s language of choice at the time, Pascal (or, more accurately, on Object Pascal).
So, can we end our search here? As you may have guessed by the fact there are XXXX paragraphs below this one – no, we can’t. The OED lists another usage of ‘app’ from 1985 – this time in the December issue of Info World. This time, we’re talking about Framework II, an office suite from Ashton-Tate, released in 1985.
Ashton-Tate has done a great job improving Framework with the release of Framework II, adding speed and size to the spreadsheet’s module, a vastly improved communications function, and many other improvements in overall operations. At first look, the user sees only one new menu (“apps” for applications) at the top of the screen, and the manner of operation is much the same. Still, the overall capabilities and ease of use are much improved with this latest release.
The ‘apps’ menu contains the telecommunications module and the spell checker; the rest is obscured in the screenshot. What interests me most about Framework II’s usage of ‘apps’ is that one look at the screenshot makes it crystal clear why the abbreviation is used instead of the full word – a lack of space. The word needed to be shortened simply because the developers didn’t have enough space. No design committees, no marketing team – just a practical choice out of sheer necessity.
Interestingly enough, Framework is still being sold to this day, and is currently at version X. It has certainly evolved quite a bit from the mid-80s when it comes to its functionality and goals – but the interface is still remarkably similar. The product goes way over my head, but I’m sure we have at least one person in the OSAlert audience who uses it – you guys and girls never cease to amaze me in that respect.
At this point, the search could end, and you could conclude, like some other articles have done, that these are the origins of the use of the word ‘app’ – but no, there’s actually a lot more interesting stuff to say about this silly three-letter word. In 1985, there was another product that used the term ‘app’ (credit).
The venerable Atari ST was launched in 1985, and it ran Atari TOS – The Operating System – which was basically the GEM (Graphical Environment Manager) user interface running on top of GEMDOS. TOS identified executable files by their extensions – there are five different executable extensions in TOS: *.ACC, *.PRG, *.TOS, *.TTP, and – you can feel it coming – *.APP. Wikipedia states that this extension wasn’t very common.
Still, common or no, the Atari ST was a very popular computer, which was unveiled in january 1985 – earlier than MacApp and Framework II. With the Atari ST, too, just like with Framework, the decision to use app wasn’t inspired by the desire to be hip or trendy, but by the need to be practical. The TOS developers only had three letters to work with, and they needed a sensible abbreviation for the word ‘application’. It was a strictly utilitarian affair.
These three uses are from 1985, but as it turns out, this is by far not the first year the term popped up in the computing landscape.
Jobs
From what I can tell (and thanks, Tupp!), the oldest, consistent, and still tangible use of the word ‘app’ comes from a rather unexpected direction – job postings. The magazine Computerworld had a special section dedicated to it, and the oldest copy which contains this section that I could find dates from June 8, 1981.
As it turns out, the abbreviation ‘app’ was incredibly widespread, and was printed in several job postings in not only this issue of the magazine, but in many subsequent issues as well. It would appear that not only programmers themselves, but also their employers used the term ‘app’ on a regular basis from at least 1981 onwards (but my gut tells me it was used before 1981 as well – this is just the oldest tangible proof I could find).
As you peruse the job postings from that era, it becomes clear that they are written in the style of telegrams – every character cost money, so you had to use shorthand as much as possible. Shortening ‘application’ to ‘app’ was just one of the many logical measures to cut the costs of placing job postings.
The interesting thing about this is that it automatically proves that ‘app’ was already a widespread term, since you can’t use abbreviations your target audience doesn’t understand (remember, no internet to easily look things up). For me, this means the term ‘app’ is way older than 1981 – we just don’t have any tangible proof from before 1981 (as far as the web is concerned).
The demise of the programmer
What I find most interesting about ‘app’ is the juxtaposition between the widespread use of the term 30 years ago, and the petty squabble over the app store trademark today. The programmers of yore used the term not because a marketing team told them to – they used it because they didn’t have much of a choice. Whether it was small displays forcing them to use abbreviations, file extensions limited to three characters, or job postings charged per character – the people that used the term every day 30 years ago used it because of the constraints they had to deal with every day.
The squabble today over the app store trademark illustrates better than I ever had imagined just how much the technology world has changed over the years. It used to be a world defined by its constraints, full of people trying to get the most out of the limited resources they had within these constraints. Today, the technology world seems far more concerned with silly patents, obvious trademarks, bezels, icon design, and whether or not Michael Arrington is a douche.
Thirty years ago, ‘app’ was used because programmers decided to use it, because it made the most sense within the constraints they were forced to deal with. Today, ‘app’ is used because the marketing department has decided to use it – or not, because the legal department has decided it can’t be used.
‘App’, then, illustrates the demise of the programmer – the programmers are no longer calling the shots. Marketing and legal do.
Apple is not trademarking app. They are trademarking “App Store”. They are not disallowing anyone calling their apps “apps”. If App Store is such an obvious name, why was no one using it before. Apple has popularised the “App Store” moniker, and they want to be the only ones reaping the benefit. This is such a non issue. When it comes to computing, there are real issue, like lock-in, interoperability etc that need addressed, not the name someone gives to their store.
Please go back and read the first paragraph after the teaser kthnxbi.
Go see the comments in the other article for other peoples opinions on that logical fallacy.
But to add my own… Why can’t I trademark “Book Store” or any other similar term?
Did you popularize this term then?
The question is interesting nonetheless.
Can a company legally use a trademark on a word or expression that has become the commonplace way of describing a concept ?
As an example, I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that in the UK, people don’t use “to vacuum clean” all so often. To describe the action of using a powerful electric pump to suck up everything in the floor of a room*, “to hoover” is preferred. Should the Hoover Company have the right to sue all illegal uses of the term ?
* And this reminds me of a webcomic gag about a “suck for a buck” sign and a messy room =_= I spend too much time on the internet.
Edited 2011-06-25 06:45 UTC
Yes or they risk their trademark becoming genericized and potentially losing it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_dilution to understand why a company must defend it’s trademarks and marks it would like to use as trademarks if it wants to keep them.
Well, that page which you provide has some good examples of what I’m meaning by “should they have the right?”.
I’m personally happy that I can use the short and convenient “aspirin” instead of “acetylsalicylic acid”, no matter who actually manufactures it. Excessive trademarking, on the other hand, tends to encourage putting lots of different names on the same thing. Like Doliprane, Efferalgan, etc… are all different trademarks on the same old paracetamol.
Question is : which would you prefer, given the choice ? Having the right to call every proprietary software repository “app store”, or sticking with “proprietary software repository” as a generic name (which is as complicated as any generic name gets) and a myriad of trademarked names for the same thing ?
Uhhh…you mean tylenol? as that is what everyone in the states calls it no matter who makes it, same as with aspirin. As for TFA this is stupid. It isn’t like chromebook or some other word cooked up by a company like Tylenol, this is too common as dirt words put side by side. Does this mean I can own any word as long as I put it with another common word that hasn’t been put together yet, like “laptop store” or “computer shop”? This is just nuts.
Besides it isn’t like anyone is gonna be able to confuse Apple’s minimalist utopia with something made by Amazon, you can’t get any farther apart when it comes to aesthetics. Same thing with that stupid Samsung lawsuit, nobody is gonna confuse a Samsung phone for an Apple one, as Apple is all about the pretty while the Samsung will be just another black square. Finally living next to an Apple centric college I can tell you talking to students the Apple name is a status thing, so buying a Samsung simply wouldn’t give the appropriate response. It would be like saying putting a “my other car is a Ferrari” sticker on a Honda equals actually having a Ferrari.
I just wonder if all this craziness is due to Steve being ill. It seemed like they were mainly focused on owning new markets when Steve was around but now that he is sick it is almost like the other potential next CEOs are trying to jockey for position by seeing who can bring in the most cash by being a douche. while I don’t wish the man ill not having a serious plan for his replacement will come back to bite Apple in the butt, as I have a feeling when Steve goes it’ll be the Pepsi guy all over again. Between the lawsuit stupidity, the “don’t say malware” stupidity, and the burning of the final cut customers, it seems like that company simply can’t do right when Steve isn’t there.
Since trademarks are not global in essence, hoover is a generic term in UK already. It’s just not revoked, formally. Because that is done by a judge.
http://www.mancunium-ip.co.uk/articles/Postregistration.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3006486.stm
Edited 2011-06-25 09:40 UTC
To give a simple yet exactly equally obvious example: should I be able to just go out and trademark “Shopping Mall” as my own?
It is not the same.
There have been tons of shopping malls around (and book stores, computer shops, food stores, etc to all those other commentors), so it’s obvious you can’t take the term as a trademark for shopping malls.
But have you EVER seen an app store before?
There was never an “app store”, no one ever used the term “app store”, so one can definitely invent the name “App Store” and use it for his newly created “app store”. Those were “download portals” before, or whatever you called them, but certainly not “app stores”.
Wow…
The basic difference between most of the Internet “download portals” and the Iphone app store is that one has to pay for apps in the Iphone app store. These “portals” are commonly called “repositories” in the Linux/BSD world, and they predate the Iphone app store by at least a decade.
Another difference between the Iphone app store and Linux/BSD repositories is the way in which the apps are accepted and maintained, but it is not necessary to go into that discussion here.
However, there were Linux app stores in which the user paid for the apps in the repository. The most notable one was Lindows/Linspire’s “Click-N-Run”: http://www.urtech.ca/2011/03/apple-you-didnt-invent-the-app-store/
The Click-N-Run app store predates Apple’s attempt by at least five years, with 9 million applications installed from a library of more than 45,000 titles.
So, a Linux, paying app store had been invented (and even “popularized”) years before the Iphone app store.
Edited 2011-06-28 17:23 UTC
“But have you EVER seen an app store before?”
I think your a little too close to apple to see the big picture, let’s try something else:
Have you ever seen a wig store before?
If wigs were to come in vogue again, it would be ridiculous to grant exclusive rights to the generic term “wig store” such that all the merchants who want to sell wigs would be unable to use the most obvious term to describe their store.
They’d have to play stupid games to try and avoid the generic terms which customers would most likely try to look them up under. No entity should be entitled to use generic terms exclusively.
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/w0YjgSYZJqWtPUmN0KKaZw?select=_mTv8y…
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/K1tZCDJw55T2a5z9abydgg?select=ZXGTlv…
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-wig-company-studio-city#query:Wig%2…
Very good, I wasn’t implying that none existed.
I did a search myself for “wig store” prior to posting and, like you, I found some results for wig stores going by other proper names.
Holywood Wigs IS-A wig store.
Outfitter Wig IS-A wig store.
The Wig Company IS-A wig store.
Alfman Wigs IS-A wig store.
If a single player were to become dominant and then claim exclusive rights to the generic term “wig store”, then it causes a great deal of damage to other wig stores and only causes more customer confusion.
The point is they should all be allowed to call themselves wig stores generically since that actually describes what they sell. They should all come up in generic searches for “wig store”.
Edited 2011-06-28 19:51 UTC
“‘App’, then, illustrates the demise of the programmer – the programmers are no longer calling the shots. Marketing and legal do.”
I suspect that this is one of the reasons the osnews crowd tends to favour companies like google versus companies like apple or microsoft (to a lesser extent) simply because the opinions of the programmers in a company like google are much closer and more accessible to the public.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of bs coming from google marketing and legal, just that the engineers and programmers at google (also ms) have a much greater voice as a representation of their company. Apple which strives to control everything and shows its public persona via very specific channels leading hiding a lot of aspects of the company from the likes of us, who, appreciate their products simply fail to see the people behind them and as such can only assume that marketing and legal are in charge (something that we see every day).
Remember that short by Monty Python about the insurance (I think it was) company where it was all old men in chains… then eventually they break free and pirate everyone else…
I sometimes envision the hidden aspect of Apple like the pre-pirate version of those men/that company…
It was “The Crimson Permanent Assurance”, at the beginning of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. One can easily find it on YouTube, sliced in parts. Awesomeness turned into a short. And an interesting underlying criticism.
Edited 2011-06-25 16:19 UTC
Apple has lost its “App Store” trademark case on another front against Amazon.
Seems App is to colloquial. Even in combination with store.
It would be like trade marking “Food Store”
http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=30948
Programmers are a booming profession of rising importance again and increasingly used to fill management positions. Below a link on a Microsoft initiative.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/more-engineers-at-the-top-just-…
Not to speak of meritocracy structures in Foss and Linux.
You should be able to trademark letters, like the letter ‘i’. I honestly think these systems were put in place to protect one, but abuse always seem to happen.
Edited 2011-06-25 01:31 UTC
http://www.worldcat.org/title/forest-of-app/oclc/9281589&referer=br…
Mind you, that’s the oldest instance I could find of “app” used as an independent word in English (using a very cursory search of library catalog entry titles). Its use as an actual abbreviation goes way back, even into medieval Latin, but it has traditionally referred to “appendix” rather than “application”.
Whats wrong with “app”? Its been Mac user shorthand for a program since forever as you’ve noted.
It just never caught on outside the Mac community till recently, but as far back as I can remember all Mac users have used “app” instead of writing out application or program, just as everyone types , Win, MSE, WMP, CPU, GPU, mobo, USB, NIC, wifi, WEP and so on and so fourth instead of the word or term, most of those are used by marketing teams as well.
Please forgive me for not leaving a comment based on the article content. However, I just have to say, Thom, it’s amazing me to me that you can look at the word ‘app’ and write a whole essay pertaining to it while barely divulging into the whole trademark issue. I really appreciate the time and thought you put into things like this and who knew the word ‘app’ went all the way back to the 80s. Crazy. Good article!
I think OS News should sue all the other media outlets out there because they have the word “news” in their title.
(Equally relevant)
Jennimc,
“I think OS News should sue all the other media outlets out there because they have the word ‘news’ in their title.
(Equally relevant)”
Hahaha! The trouble with this is that OSAlert is not a 600lb guerrilla; nobody will listen.
The first time I recall hearing “killer app” was in reference to VisiCalc; software so compelling it drove sales of the computer hardware to run it. Ironic that it drove sales of Apple II computers. Seems Apple is just retreading familiar ground promoting apps to drive iPhone sales. But VisiCalc was out in 1979, pre-1981. Per Wikipedia, even this was predated by use of the term to refer to Space Invaders in 1978…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_application
Edited 2011-06-25 20:15 UTC
Too long; DID read.
This is one of the best articles I have read on the Internet in a loooong time! Great work!
It’s listed in The Jargon File also though with no date of earliest usage.
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/A/app.html
That entry dates back to the June 1990 version of the Jargon File [1]
The entry for “Killer App” (added to the Jargon file in July 1996 [2]) dates the usage of that term to the “mid 1980s”
[1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg211.txt
[2] http://www.catb.org/jargon/oldversions/jarg400.txt
I’m suddenly seeing rockets and missiles overlayed on an incredibly realistic starfield.