How does an API work? Ania explains it simply here.

[00:00] How does my app actually get real data? [00:03] Because it's not guessing. It's using [00:05] something called an API. Think of an API [00:09] like a waiter in a restaurant. You don't [00:11] just go into the kitchen yourself, you [00:13] place an order. Same in coding. Your app [00:17] sends a request, the API takes it to the [00:21] server, the server prepares the data, [00:24] the API brings it back. [00:26] Now, here's where it gets real. Every [00:29] time you check the weather, scroll [00:31] social media, log into an app, you are [00:34] likely using APIs. Your app is [00:37] constantly asking, "Hey, give me this [00:40] data." And APIs respond with exactly [00:43] what you need. In code, it looks like [00:46] this. That one line, you just pulled [00:49] real data from somewhere else on the [00:51] internet. No database, no back end, no [00:54] complexity. Just a request and a [00:57] response. [00:59] Once you understand APIs, you stop [01:01] asking, "How do I build everything?" and [01:04] start thinking, "What can I connect?" [01:06] And that's when coding gets powerful.