Comment on Apple has REMOVED the ICEBlock app from the App Store due to “objectionable content.”
PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks agoA lot of websites have server side programs taht are never downloaded by the client. So there is a pretty big difference there. Basically if you want a subversive anti-government “app” you really want a website, not an app.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Wait, where are you seeing a difference between that and how an app functions? Right now it feels like you’re abstracting a bit too far in order to make a point, but I’m deeply curious what you mean there.
PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Most apps are a packaged browser that makes proprietary API calls over https. However there is nothing proprietary or valuable in the app itself, except possibly some key material for authentication of the app with the back-end.
Then depending on the user making various requests a middle-ware program will interact with the backend database and retrieve the results back to the user. The database is the valuable part and other then the specific query the user is making, nothing else is can be retrieved by the user. Normally the middle ware isn’t even downloadable either.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You’re just describing the MVVM design paradigm. That’s how everything that doesn’t benefit from locally hosted resources works. Host the database, shift processing to the user’s hardware (excepting hardware dependent tasks like LLMs or other compute heavy tasks). Websites, apps, even firmware can all use this – essentially anything that makes an API call in some way uses this basic structure. Even entirely local applications do it this way (albeit internally).
PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Yes. Hence my initial claim that apps are worthless, and shouldn’t be used if you can use a website instead. So the whole idea of Apple or Android being able to remove the “iceblock” app, shows that the app was ill-conceived to begin with. Or possibly it was even a honey-pot since apps do have much greater access to the parent device then a website.