# What an app is


> A small program built for a screen, showing data that changes on its own. What separates it from a web page and from an uploaded file.
An image is fixed once you make it. An app is the opposite: a small program that shows information which keeps changing, without anyone touching it.

A dashboard that refreshes through the day, a calendar filling with the day's meetings, a weather panel, a news feed, a clock. You give it a few details and it stays current.

## Not just a web page

You could point a screen at a URL and get something similar. Two things make an app different.

**It is built to be shown, not used.** A web page is made for a person at a laptop: small text, menus, a layout that assumes someone is close enough to click. An app is laid out to fill a display and be read across a room, with nothing to interact with.

**It is packaged for configuration.** An app declares what it needs, so the dashboard gives you a form: which dashboard, which calendar, which city. A web page gives you a URL and leaves the rest to you.

See [Web pages](/docs/content/web-pages/) for when a URL is the better answer, which is often, particularly for something you already built.

## An app is content

To a screen there is nothing special about an app. It sits in a [playlist](/docs/playlists/) beside your images and videos, takes its turn, holds the screen for its slot, and hands over to the next item. It follows the same schedule rules and plays on the screens you choose.

That is the quiet strength of it: you learn no separate system. Everything you know about playlists and scheduling applies unchanged.

## What it costs

Nothing beyond your subscription. Apps are included on every plan, however many you use.

## Categories in the store

The store groups apps into Utilities, Productivity, News, Dashboards, Just For Fun, Messaging & Content, HR, and Finance, with an **Other** bucket for anything uncategorized.

Several of the news apps are the same underlying reader pointed at a different publication, so if the feed you want is not listed, the RSS Reader takes any feed URL.