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It's actually a much older term than that.

http://www.osnews.com/story/24882/The_History_of_App_and_the...

[disclaimer: I'm the author of both the parent article as well as the article linked to in this comment]

I'm sure it is, I wasn't suggesting otherwise; just concurring with the poster I replied to that Apple have used the term for a long time and that they certainly used the term long before OS X was released.

Programmer, by the way, referred to their wares as 'software' and 'programs' (hence the nomenclature), not just apps. Your observation that "marketing and legal" call the shots is trite. And wrong. The issue, as with everything, is accountants and money men.

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