CAPE MOB Unit 1 key terms

A software program designed to run on a portable device such as a smartphone or tablet, often distributed through an app store and built to use device features like touch, GPS, and camera.

An application written specifically for one operating system using that platform's own language and tools, giving direct access to hardware and the fastest performance but requiring separate builds per platform.

An application whose interface is built with web technologies and wrapped inside a native container, letting one codebase run on several platforms while still reaching some device features through a bridge.

A program delivered through a browser and accessed by URL rather than installed from a store, so it updates centrally but has limited access to device hardware and depends on connectivity.

A website enhanced with service workers, a manifest, and offline caching so it can be installed to the home screen and behave much like a native application without store distribution.

An approach that builds one shared codebase and compiles or renders it for several mobile operating systems, trading some native performance and deep hardware access for lower cost and faster delivery.

A bundle of libraries, tools, emulators, and documentation supplied by a platform vendor that developers install to compile, test, and package applications for that platform.

A defined set of rules and endpoints through which one piece of software requests data or services from another, hiding internal implementation and specifying inputs, outputs, and error behaviour.

A single application combining a source code editor, build tools, and a debugger, often with device emulators, so developers can write, run, and troubleshoot code in one place.

Software that imitates a target device's hardware and operating system on a computer, allowing developers to run and test an application without owning every physical handset.

A layout technique that uses fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries so one interface adapts its arrangement and sizing to different screen widths and orientations.

The visible area of a screen in which a page or app is drawn; its width, height, and pixel density determine how content is scaled and arranged on a mobile device.

The visible and interactive layer of an application, including screens, controls, typography, and colour, through which a person views information and issues commands to the system.

The overall quality of a person's interaction with a product, covering ease of use, efficiency, accessibility, and satisfaction across the whole journey rather than any single screen.

The area of a screen that responds to a tap for a given control; it must be large enough to hit reliably with a fingertip, so designers set minimum sizes and spacing.

A movement-based input such as a swipe, pinch, long press, or double tap that a touchscreen recognises, allowing richer commands than a single tap without adding on-screen buttons.

The practice of designing applications that people with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments can use, through features such as screen reader labels, contrast, and adjustable text size.

The number of physical pixels packed into a unit of screen area, usually expressed in dots per inch; higher density requires scalable graphics and density-independent layout units.

The system software on a phone or tablet that manages hardware, memory, permissions, and app lifecycle, and provides the platform services applications call upon to run.

An isolation mechanism that confines each installed app to its own storage and resource area, preventing it from freely reading other apps' data or tampering with the wider system.

A request an app makes while running, rather than at install time, for access to sensitive resources such as camera, location, or contacts, which the user may grant or deny.

The sequence of states an app moves through, such as launched, foreground, background, suspended, and terminated, which governs when it may run code or must release resources.

The process of saving an app's current screen and data when it is interrupted or killed, then rebuilding that exact situation so the user resumes where they left off.

Space on the device itself, such as files, key-value stores, or embedded databases, used to keep data available offline and to persist information between sessions of an application.

A design capability that lets an application keep working without a network connection by serving cached content and queuing user actions until connectivity returns.

The process of reconciling changes made on a device with a remote server so that both copies converge, requiring rules to resolve conflicts when the same record was edited in two places.

A background script registered by a web page that can intercept network requests, serve cached responses, and enable offline use and push notifications for web-based applications.

An architectural style for web services in which clients act on resources identified by URLs using standard HTTP methods, with each request carrying all information needed and responses typically stateless.

A lightweight text format for structured data built from objects, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans, and null, widely used to exchange payloads between mobile clients and servers.

A three-digit number in a server response indicating the outcome of a request, such as success, redirection, client error, or server failure, which clients use to decide what to do next.

The process of verifying that a user or device is who it claims to be, commonly through credentials, tokens, or biometrics, before granting access to protected resources.

The process of deciding what an authenticated identity is permitted to do, determining which resources, operations, or screens that user or role may access within a system.

A compact credential issued after successful login that the client presents with later requests to prove its identity, often time-limited and revocable without resending a password.

Protected device facilities, backed by hardware or encrypted key stores, used to hold tokens, keys, and passwords so that other apps and casual attackers cannot read them.

The transformation of readable data into ciphertext using a key so that only parties holding the correct key can reverse it, protecting information in transit or at rest.

A protocol that encrypts and authenticates traffic between a client and server, preventing eavesdropping and tampering; mobile apps should enforce it for all network communication.

A hardening technique in which an app accepts only a specific known server certificate or public key, so interception with a fraudulently issued certificate is rejected.

A short message delivered from a server to a device through a platform notification service, able to alert the user even when the target application is not currently running.

The process of submitting a built application to a distribution marketplace, including signing, metadata, review, and staged release, so users can find, install, and update it.

Attaching a cryptographic signature to an application package so the platform can verify its origin and confirm it has not been altered since the developer built it.

The practice of assigning increasing identifiers to releases of an application so that stores, devices, and support staff can distinguish builds and manage upgrades or rollbacks.