Difference between widget and app?

[Blayzejlm]

Ok so like the title says...whats the difference between the 2? Pretty new to the forum and I see people talking about a widget for this but an app for that. There is a difference right? I'm not just misunderstanding?:blink:

 

[stanrc]

An app is any program that you would open, gmail, calendar, browser, etc.

A widget is something that runs on the desktop and displays information, usually updates itself regularly.

This could be a widget showing facebook status updates, sports scores, buttons to turn gps/wifi/sound on or off, stuff like that.

 

[mjs31]

As Stan mentioned there is a key difference. The most common widget is probably weather ones. They are the same thing as you may have running on your pc desktop. Typically it will update at a certain frequency and show your weather all the time. Calendar widgets will show upcoming appointments and allow you quick access to add more appointments. There are many other examples and each app may or may not have one. Using the calendar as an example...the calendar itself is the application. You could make a shortcut to it on your desktop but there would be no information showing....just the shortcut button. A calendar widget will then show the appointments you have scheduled inside the Calendar application and also allow you quick entries to it. When you enter information via the widget, it is not being stored in the widget itself but the actual application.

I probably made it more confusing than it is, but hopefully not. If you just want to have quick access to an application you can long press it and then move it to the desktop. That basically creates a shortcut to the application.