What technology is actually made of

Pick up your phone and look at it for a moment. You are holding two different parts of technology, and they work together so closely that they can feel like one thing.

First there is the physical object: the screen, the battery, the camera, the speakers, the chips inside. These parts are called hardwareConcept · lights on your maphardwareThe physical machinery of a device, the parts you could touch. Distinct from software, the instructions that tell that machinery what to do, and useless without it: hardware alone is an expensive paperweight., and hardware means any physical part of a computer or device: anything you can see, touch, carry, and sometimes break. A phone screen is hardware, and so are a laptop keyboard, a computer processor, a hard drive, and a Wi-Fi router.

A memorable way to think about it is that hardware is the part you could drop on your foot.

Then there is everything the phone knows how to do: display your messages, take a photo, calculate directions, play music, open your applications. All of that comes from softwareConcept · lights on your mapsoftwareThe encoded instructions that tell hardware what to do. Distinct from the hardware it runs on, and useless without it: software alone is just an idea..

Software is the collection of instructions and information that tells hardware how to behave, and you cannot touch it the way you can touch a screen or a keyboard because it exists as encoded information, stored and run on the physical hardware.

When you press the camera button on your phone, the hardware captures light through the lens, and the software tells the phone how to turn that captured information into a photo, save it, and display it on the screen. Hardware provides the physical capabilities; software directs them.

How can an update improve your phone?

The distinction between hardware and software explains how your phone can gain new features overnight.

During a software update, nobody secretly replaces the physical parts inside your phone. What changes is the set of instructions the phone follows. The hardware may remain the same, but new instructions can make it behave differently.

That is why an update can add a feature, change how something looks, fix a problem, improve security, or make an existing feature work differently.

The simplest way to remember this is: Same hardware. Updated software. Different behavior.

What is an application?

An applicationConcept · lights on your mapapplicationAn application (or “app”) is software designed to help a user accomplish a particular task or purpose: Spotify, Excel, Google Maps. It contrasts with software that works behind the scenes to keep the device itself operating., often shortened to app, is software designed to help a user accomplish a particular task or purpose.

Spotify helps you listen to music, Google Maps helps you navigate, Microsoft Excel helps you work with spreadsheets, and Instagram helps you share and view content. All of these are applications because all of them are software that people directly use to do something.

But not all software is an application. Some of it works behind the scenes to keep the device itself operating. It may manage your phone’s battery, for example, or control its connection to Wi-Fi, or help its physical components communicate with one another.

You may never interact with that software directly, but the device depends on it all the same, and applications are the part of software that users do interact with, the part built to help them accomplish something.

The common types of applications

Applications can appear in four common forms, and one product often ships as all four.

A websiteConcept · lights on your mapwebsiteAn application accessed through a web browser that mainly presents information: a news site, a restaurant page, a personal blog. Nothing is installed; the browser fetches it each time. is accessed through a web browser, and it mainly presents information. A news site, a restaurant page, or a personal blog might be considered a website.

A web appConcept · lights on your mapweb appAn application that also runs inside a browser but behaves like an interactive tool rather than a page to read: Google Docs, Figma, Gmail. The line between this and a website is a spectrum, not a wall. also runs inside a browser, but it behaves more like an interactive tool. Google Docs is a web app because you can create, edit, save, and share documents inside it.

The boundary between the two is not always exact. Many modern websites combine informational pages with interactive features, so it is often better to think of websites and web apps as points on a spectrum.

A mobile appConcept · lights on your mapmobile appAn application installed on a phone or tablet, usually through an app store: the mobile versions of Spotify, Uber, Instagram. Installed rather than fetched, so the app itself opens with the signal gone, though most features still need a connection to show anything current. is designed for a phone or tablet and usually installed through an app store, like the mobile versions of Spotify, Uber, and Instagram.

And a desktop appConcept · lights on your mapdesktop appAn application installed on a laptop or desktop computer: Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, the desktop version of Spotify. Like a mobile app, it lives on the machine rather than in a browser tab. is installed on a laptop or desktop computer. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, and the desktop version of Spotify are common examples.

One product can have several application versions

A single product may be available through several of these forms at once. Spotify, for example, can be used through a mobile app, a desktop app, or a web app inside a browser. And while the versions may look and behave somewhat differently, they can all connect to the same account, the same music library, the same playlists, and the same underlying product systems.

Later, you will learn how these different versions communicate with the machinery behind the product.

The mental model to remember

Hardware is the physical technology.

Software is the instructions and information that tell the hardware what to do.

An application is software designed to help a user accomplish a purpose.

Imagine that you are using Spotify on your phone. The screen and speakers are hardware, the instructions that make Spotify function are software, and Spotify itself is an application, with the version installed on your phone being a mobile app.

One final distinction is worth remembering: every application is software, but not every piece of software is an application.