What is API and How it Works
An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows your apps to talk to a server. Think of it as a waiter in a restaurant. You (the app) ask the waiter (the API) for a hamburger (data), and the waiter gets it from the kitchen (the server) and brings it back to you.
That's how your app gets information from the cloud. For example, when you look up your order history on a shopping site, the app makes an API call to the server to get the data. The server then sends it back to the app, so you can see your past orders.
Another example is a weather app, which uses an API to ask for the weather in your location. The server processes this and returns the weather data to your app. APIs let different systems work together, making it easier for developers to add complex features to apps.
They handle tasks like payments, data fetching, and chat. You can even experiment with APIs using tools like Chrome dev tools to see how they work and maybe even hack around a bit. For example, you can see how a game API works by tracking the data it sends and receives using Chrome.
APIs are powerful tools that make modern apps possible.
