Menu Bars and Multiple Apps

Soeren writes a nice piece on menus and monolithic apps. Lots of interesting stuff in there, though he seems to be overlooking the problems many users have with the distinction between different applications. You don't have different apps outside the computer, you just use different objects on each other, so this is something new people need to learn, and due to unfortunate naming (what is an "application" anyway?) it's not made easier to learn. So, yes, having interlinked mini apps instead of one huge one improves usability for a certain level of users, but I'm still not sure how we remove the initial hurdle of making people understand what an app is without burdening them with lots of knowledge about the way the machine works...