Widget vs Application

[TucsonBob13]

I just bought a LG Ally yesterday. What is/are the difference(s) between a widget and an application? I seem to have boht a YouTube app and a YouTube widget. Are they different things or will they both do the same tasks.
Thanks for the help.
TucsonBob13

 

[semperLux]

the way I understand it is that a widget provides you with immediate access to hardware an data and gets data pushed to it. It also is part of your main GUI (graphic user interface). An application is a program that although does the same a widget a does, gets opened, uses memory, and then gets closed. The Youtube widget, for example, sits on your desktop showing you links to featured videos that are getting pushed to your phone. The application actually opens the Youtube program or accesses a link that sends you to the YouTube website.

 

[ari-free]

a widget is the closest thing to having multiple windows open on your pc

 

[mrqs]

strictly speaking they're all apps - some include widgets, some comprise completely of widgets and some have no widgets at all

a widget you add to your home screen (compare desktop in windows) by long-tapping on it and selecting "widgets" from the resulting pop-up
most widgets are used for checking frequently updating info, such as the weather or your calender and at their current form in android, they have very limited interactivity - most simply open up an app when you tap them (be that the app the widget was bundled with or some other, like google calendar or a web browser)

 

[takeshi]

Don't forget search and Google widget versus app - Google Search

 

[TucsonBob13]

Thannk you all for the help. I'm still not too good at looking up info. I keep forgetting that search engines are really more sophisticated than they used to be. I've been using the Internet for about 10 years now and forget about the new technology for searches.

TucsonBob13

 

[PeRFeKTo]

The Widgets feature is the reason I switched over to Android.