Can we possibly do without apps on PCs ?
I decided to ask ChatGPT:
That’s a fascinating question — and it depends on what you mean by “apps.”
If we mean traditional installed applications (like Word, Photoshop, VSCode, etc.), then yes, it’s increasingly possible to get by without them — but only in certain scenarios. Here’s how it breaks down:
<a bunch of bullet points and emojis>
So once again, Lemmy users show how STUPID they are for not realizing how fascinating this question is. Get clanked, meatbags.
I hope this is satire. But I can’t be certain if it is.
@[email protected] what satire ??🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I’m gonna be real this has given me a fight or flight response I wasn’t aware is possible.
@[email protected] why not ??🤔🤔🤔
How will you use the machine without applications?
Programs.
Decoration
What i the suggestion here?
A Chromebook /chromeOS is mostly a PC without apps.
These comments are all so aggressive, let me try answering this in a less rude way.
App is short for application, at the end of the day no matter where you install an app from an app is a packaged chunk of software meant to accomplish a task. Microsoft word is an app, chrome is an app, flappy bird is an app, calculator is an app, any “program” that you launch is an app.
Now where the waters get muddy is app stores. App stores such as the apple store or Google play are apps specifically built to help you install other apps. The intent of these is to provide users a safe location they can search for other apps and install them without fear of viruses and receive updates automatically. Windows and Linux have their own app stores too, the windows store, though sad and decrepit is supposed to provide the same assurances as Mac’s app store.
Now can you use the computer without apps? Yes! Your computer just won’t do much since you’ve forgone your calculator, games, and any other purpose built software you might have installed.
Can you use the computer without the “app store”? Yes! You can install the application from anywhere, it doesn’t need to be the app store. Apple and Google get a cut of the money made by apps sold on the app store. Because of this they are incentives to discourage users from installing apps from elsewhere. They’ve called installing apps from elsewhere “side loading” in order to make it sound scary and not normal but it is in fact the normal way we have been installing apps since before these app stores arrived.
The last type of app I want to call out because it’s a bit different. Web apps are apps you can use by going to a web page. These apps are installed on someone else’s computer and you get to use it when you open the page. It’s still an app, you just don’t have to install it. There are special types of computers (for example. Chromebooks) that are built around these types of apps.
Hope this helps!
Spot on answer.
While I totally agree with you, it really does seem like we’re moving back towards the era of centralized committing, at least for mainstream computing. More and more “desktop” applications are really electron apps with a good chunk of the compute happening server side. That’s before you start to consider the many browser based word processing products, etc.
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Like treat every PC like a BASIC or Forth machine? Not sure the normies would like needing to code their own shit.
Once you code your own shit, you have app on PC.
Not necessarily. Maybe they reboot directly into their code, flashed on their MB?
Now we’re getting metaphysical here. When does a
ForthForÞ word become an “app”?EDIT: Should have looked more closely at who replied to me. Fixed that. 😉
I parrotted OP’s terminology.
Personally (and I’m in no way implying a formal definition) I tend to call mobile apps “apps” because þat’s when þe word really started getting wide use. Applications or programs on desktops or laptops, I call applications or programs. Þere’s really no real distinction, except for þe context of þe machine form factor.
To me, an “app” implies
- some sort of walled-ish garden (notwiþstanding sideloading); installed from a standard “store”
- usually not FOSS - ads count as having a cost
- a GUI program for a mobile device
But I suppose I’d also include þose programs people run in a browser on Facebook. SPAs are “apps,” I guess.
It’s arbitrary. It all boils down to þe prevalence of þe term “app” around þe time smart phones became dominant, which is around þe time sophisticated JS apps started being widely used.
lol, I appreciate the serious reply to a seriously unserious comment 😉
Yeah, it’s just someþing I’ve þought about, but never really expressed. Writing is a handy tool for organizing my þoughts. I could never develop þ diary habit, þough. Þank god for internet strangers!
Yes, living without any PC at all is possible.
What this “app” thing you speak of?
@[email protected] the ones that you get from the appstores…
Your question was very unspecific and broad, and despite that, now it goes into a direction I have not foreseen. Your question would have been much more useful and you would have received a lot better answers if you had provided some context, established a premise, been more specific about what you’re asking.
You asked about PC. Given that Windows is the prevalent PC operating system, I’ll answer for that.
While Windows has a Microsoft Store app store now, traditionally and still prevalent, most software and applications is installed and managed not through this “app store”, but manually or with other non-OS-integrated software.
I feel like the premise of the question is from a very different understanding of how things work or are.
@[email protected] windows is the prevailing operating system, yes…
Now imagine a world where you have no access to anything that’s proprietary, how would you survive in that case ??
Proprietary products are always produced according to the demands of the market, but your needs need not fit into the general demands always 😄😄😄😄😄
Now imagine a world where you have no access to anything that’s proprietary, how would you survive in that case ??
Pretty much the same as I do today.
Imagine a world where you don’t have access to mentionning users in every post, how would you survive?
@[email protected] appstores literally serve you everything on a plate 😄😄😄
Windows organise a grand buffet for you, but l wish to have the kitchen under my control 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄
Does that make any sense to you ???
A what store now? Like Lowe’s, Costco, or The Container Store?
@[email protected] any store… I mean apps downloaded from any store…
Why would you need to go to a store to download apps?
@[email protected] exactly… Whatever tools l require, l can access that from the terminal, right ??
Plenty of GUI apps in the repository.
Yeah I don’t use stores, sorry.
…and posted in programming… sigh
@[email protected] is this not the right forum ??
No it is not. This has nothing to do with programming.
Programming is writing in a programming language so the computer can execute it.
This post mentions no programming language, nor any set of programming languages. It isn’t either something that applies to all languages.
In short, it has nothing to do with programming
@[email protected] thank you very much for explaining it. Could you tell me which forums would be more suitable for my general questions ??
In my opinion, this question makes no sense so it belongs nowhere.
But for it to be on topic, it would need to go in a general technology or OS community.
Hey @[email protected] it comes off as aggressively confrontational to reply to someone and @mention them at the same time.
Microblog clients, which may expect mastodon like interfaces, do this by default.
I see nothing wrong with it personally /shrug
No, it doesn’t.
It might feel “aggressively confrontational” to you, but I find your weird tone policing to be “aggressively confrontational”.
We’re on the fediverse, get used to there being differences like this. Especially if you’re on an instance which portrays everything the same.
In this case, you’re looking at a microblog post and its replies, not a thread. It’s still posted in a community, because the user uses Mbin which does still require posts made from it to be associated with a community, and that’s why Lemmy displays it as a regular thread. But it’s not.
Since OP uses Mbin, which supports both, this being a microblog post specifically suggests their target audience is Mastodon, and they expected to get replies from Mastodon here. On Mastodon, explicit mentions are essential, as that’s how Mastodon decides whom to notify. The replied to user doesn’t get notified unless they are also mentioned in the post.
Mbin’s default behavior doesn’t help here, as it doesn’t show a user’s instance (so you have to click through to people’s profile to see their software, which OP probably doesn’t do, I don’t either), and includes the mentions by default for microblog replies (so removing them is more work than leaving them be).
This is the fediverse, I recommend finding peace with the fact you’ll run into different customs here.
OP created a microblog post, which means Mastodon is the target audience, not Lemmy. For Mastodon, it’s essential to include mentions, even to the person you’re replying to, because otherwise Mastodon won’t notify the user of the reply.
Since Mastodon is the target audience here, OP probably also expected replies to come from that side of the fediverse, not the threadiverse. Their instance by default doesn’t display your instance’s name next to your name, nor does it display your software there. So they probably weren’t aware the user they were replying to used Lemmy. Hence the mention.
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