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Hardware and software — Computing, 4–6 years

Computers need both physical parts and the programs that tell those parts what to do. Computing, 4–6 years.

Two parts working together

Hardware means the parts you can touch, such as a screen, speaker or camera. Software means the instructions and pictures inside the machine that guide those parts. A game needs both: the tablet to run it and the game program to make it happen.

Why separate the names?

People needed a way to talk about two different problems: a broken part and a wrong or missing program. Naming them separately makes it easier to find the trouble and choose the right help. A new app can use the same screen and buttons, so not every change needs new hardware.

Opening a drawing app

First, you tap the drawing app’s picture. The screen and touch sensor are hardware: they notice your tap and show the picture. The app is software: it tells the tablet how to open tools, colours and a blank page. If the screen is broken, changing the app will not repair it.

The app is not the screen

A common mix-up is to call everything on a tablet an app, because we see the app on the screen. That is reasonable: the two parts work so closely together that they feel like one thing. Remember that the glass can break while the program stays the same, or the program can fail while the glass still works.

Choosing the right help

This distinction helps when a device has a problem. If no sound comes from a speaker, the speaker may be hardware; if only one game is silent, its software may be the cause. You can describe what works and what does not, so an adult or technician knows where to look.

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