A program or file is device independent when its function is universal on different types of device.
For the World Wide Web, this means writing simple common denominator Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) so that most Web user agents on most devices can render it acceptably.
For computer programs, this generally means that it is written in a metalanguage that can be read by any platform. A program that was not originally written for a certain environment can be ported, i.e. the code can be adapted for a certain platform and compiled for the platform it will be functioning in. Unfortunately, this can lead to confusion if the user interface still resembles the one for the platform it was initially designed for.
For computer files, device independence means that software (or, theoretically, hardware) is in place that can interpret the file and allow the user to view or manipulate it. Good examples of cross-platform or device independent file formats are HTML and PDF, GIF and JPEG.
Famous quotes containing the words device and/or independent:
“One good reason for the popularity of “reductionism” among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism.... In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is.”
—Claud Cockburn (1904–1981)
“I have defeated them all.... I was left with some money to battle with the world when quite young, and at the present time have much to feel proud of.... The Lord gave me talent, and I know I have done good with it.... For my brains have made me quite independent and without the help of any man.”
—Harriet A. Brown, U.S. inventor and educator. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, ch. 8, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)