What is a console application?

You might be wondering what a console is. Before ping into writing the code, let's try to understand the difference between a console interface and a Graphical User Interface (GUI). We say that a console interface is an interface based on text. This means that we are able to interact with the interface using only text.

An application that uses a console interface can also be considered a console application. To understand what a console interface is like in practice, you can have a look at the interface of the Terminal application, which ships together with macOS:

The Terminal application is a powerful application to control the underlying operating system. Everything is controlled by text in the sense that you write commands to instruct the operating system to do what you want. The output of your commands will be communicated back to you in text as well.

An iPhone is a great example of a device that uses a GUI. We are all very used to being able to click on icons to launch our applications, to swipe up and down to see our list scroll in an animated fashion, and to long press our icons to see them wiggle back and forth to indicate that you can move them. All this is often referred to as the look and feel, and it is all at the core of the concept of a GUI.