An application programming interface (API) is the means by which different software interacts. They promote connectivity between technologies to improve user experience.
For someone who isn’t tech-savvy, think of an API as a server for the software world. Curiously, a server and an API have similarities when it comes to their functionality.
To illustrate, a waiter takes orders from customers and brings those orders into the kitchen. After the preparation is complete, the waiter will bring their food to the customer.
In this way, the waiter acts as a kind of intermediary, facilitating communication between the table he serves and the kitchen preparing the meal.
Similarly, the API functions as a tool to help connect software platforms that cannot interact with each other.
In fact, an API looks like a big block of code. But it allows developers to create user-friendly software. An API is a large block of code that allows developers to create user-friendly software.
What is the API used for?
APIs are used to abstract the complexity of back-end logic in many software systems.
The API accesses data from specific software and ensures that it is compatible with the interactive software. End users have no direct interaction with the API, but instead, they reap the benefits once their requirements are met. This is why the API itself is not an application but a kind of interface. If you’re used to front-end web development, you’re probably familiar with the user interface.
The user interface is the graphical component of the software product that the user comes into contact with. They are how you access the screen itself.
Of course, on the development back-end, there’s a lot of code that powers the internal structures that help navigate any piece of software. However, the user interface is something that the end user needs to control to access any software. Likewise, an API is something that software platforms have to deal with in order to gain accessibility from one software to another.
examples of APIs:
To be fair, it’s a bit difficult to really understand application programming interfaces without knowing their actual applications. Below are nine sample APIs, illustrating the different types of APIs.
1. Twitter bots:
If you spend a lot of time on Twitter, you’ve probably come across bots at some point. Twitter has many bots that use Twitter API to perform automated tasks.
Over a decade ago, Twitter bots accounted for 24% of tweets. Undoubtedly, today their involvement is even greater. There are so many bots that it’s hard to figure out which one stands out the most.
But for the sake of giving API examples, it’s worth discussing one or two notable Twitter bots. A fan favorite is @MagicRealismBot, a Twitter bot that generates magic stories every four hours. It uses a random combination of genre-defining elements and plugs them into a 280-character tweet.
@MagicRealism is a fan-favorite Twitter bot that constantly churns out surreal stories.
A more handy Twitter bot is called @ThreadReaderApp. Twitter users can tag bots under any topic. The bot then summarizes all the text in the string and presents it as normal, readable text on a page.
Both of these bots leverage Twitter API to work successfully with Twitter’s internal software system.
2. Login with XYZ:
Okay, chances are you don’t have an account on the platform called “XYZ”. No problem. Really, the idea is that for signing up or logging into virtually any online service, you now have the option to avoid mundane account management with your own data.
Obviously, there are certainly many instances where you have clicked “login with Facebook” or “sign in with Google”.
Attempts to create a brand new account
