Permanent and transient chaotic dynamics has been found in many applications like mechanical oscillators, laser physics, neuroscience, ecology and coupled systems of different kind to name only a few. Recently, the focus has shifted to transient chaos as a phenomenon which provides new opportunities for complex dynamics. On the one hand, this has been manifested in an increasing interest in a phenomenon called metastability, in which a system switches between different metastable dynamical states. We show, how chaotic saddles comprising different spatial-temporal patterns can arise in coupled neuronal systems, capable of pattern switching similar to processes appearing in the brain. On the other hand, transient chaos can become extraordinary long-lived or even permanent when systems exhibiting transient chaos in their dynamics are coupled or if a non-autonomous, non-periodic driving is applied. For this second possibility we discuss the constructive role of transient chaos in single mechanical systems, where transient chaotic oscillations become long-lived despite the loss of external driving which would normally lead to transitions from chaotic to periodic behavior and in coupled ecological systems, where transient chaos prevents the extinction of species.