System Software and Application Software

System Software acts as an intermediary between the user and the computer. It is designed to use and maintain the computer hardware. For instance, think of a house, with running water and electricity, and well furnished, so System software is like the running water, electricity and furniture in the house and without these things it would be very difficult to live in the house. This means, without System software in a computer, Application software cannot be executed or run successfully.

However, system software is a concept of system programming, which involves the programming of software that accesses and controls the inner workings of a computer hardware. Ipso facto, System programming is another field and in fact, an entirely different course under Computer Science.

Examples of System Software include operating systems (OS), like MacOS, Windows and Linux. Other examples are firmware, device drivers, Utility software, etc.

Application software is a computer software that is designed to help users perform a specific task on a computer. Again for instance, think of a house, with running water and electricity, and well furnished but without home appliances such as Television, Home Theatre, Washing machine, etc. So Application software is the home appliances, it brings livelihood and effectiveness to the house. Imagine your Laptop or Phone without Browser, WhatsApp, Slack, Twitter etc, how boring and useless would they be? You get the point now? Okay, nice!

Application programming is a concept of application software and in fact, it involves building and developing the applications (Mobile, Desktop and Web) that run on computers and that’s what Altschool Africa school of engineering is all about and your journey to become an application software engineer begins now!

Examples of application software are Microsoft Office, VLC media player, WhatsApp, Slack, Google Chrome or Firefox, Twitter etc.