What is the word I need...when is an app not an app?

May 8, 2012 11:58 AM

For android and apple mobile devices: The main page holds icons of apps. What do you call the icons within the app itself, especially if they are not links to mobile sites? Apps seems confusing. For example: ZDbox is a multi-function app for android that has, when you open it, other things you can do. Assuming that they were to look like the main page of a mobile screen, what are these things called?
posted by CodeMonkey to technology (5 answers total)

Wouldn't they simply be buttons or icons? While the icon on the main screen/desktop (or within the folder group/app group) isn't the app (I hate that word) itself, it's an icon that launches the app.

Looking at "traditional" documentation standards, you have menus, menu options, buttons, links - I'd say an iconic/image button or link would be a icon or button.

Example:

Tap the Fuzznugget icon to launch the Fuzznugget app.

Tap the gears icon to edit your settings.

Tap the bell to set reminders.

Tap the Tell Your Friends link to send an email to the contacts in your Friend list.

And so forth.
posted by tilde at 12:10 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm old-school: "apps" are really just "programs", and the icons within are "functions", "function buttons", or "command( button)s".

I suppose "applet" might be appropriate.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:11 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's really up to the app. You could call them icons, buttons, tools, links, frobulators. If these aren't standard UI elements (and in iOS icons within apps aren't standard UI elements) it would really be up to the developer to define the terminology for their app.
posted by alms at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

What do you call the icons within the app itself

More generically? UI controls, probably.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:33 PM on May 8, 2012 [1 favorite]

In iOS-speak, these icons are really just UIButton instances, which is a subclass of a UIView. There's probably a similarly-named button view subclass in Java, depending on the framework used (Swing, AWT, etc.).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:08 PM on May 8, 2012