What are API integrations? (With everyday examples)

What are API integrations?

So, imagine you’re sitting in the UN General Assembly.

Someone starts speaking French. You don’t speak French. But you put on your earpiece, and suddenly you can follow the conversation.

Somewhere in that building, an interpreter is doing the work.

You get to listen. The interpreter makes that possible without you learning another language.

Software needs that kind of help, too: a way for one program to make a request another can understand.

It can be something as ordinary as printing a return label for those shoes you ordered from Amazon.

They looked great in the photos. But your feet disagreed.

You open the return label and click Print. Your app hands the job to your computer’s printing system through an API. The system and printer driver take care of sending it to your printer.

A moment later, there’s your label.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It gives software a defined way to ask for information or ask another program to do something. Connecting software through that interface is an API integration.

These exchanges don’t always happen over the internet. Some happen right inside your computer.

Say your kid is playing Minecraft. Or maybe you’re the one playing. No judgment!

You press W. Your computer’s operating system passes the key press to the game through an API. Minecraft checks its controls: W means move forward.

Your character moves.

With any luck, you stay out of the lava.