What benefit would this even serve over just using your mobile browser or a WebView wrapper?
this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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Technology
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Data mining. Native app has more permissions.
Its an additional option for those who prefer a native app. Do you have an issue with it?
Yeah, they will shittify their website so that you have to use their app. Then they can collect more data.
Hate that shit.
I don't necessarily take issue with the app just for being an app, and it hasn't come out yet so not like taking issue with it now would be particularly meaningful. If it ends up being worse than the website that'd suck. If they end up making decisions that make the website worse to drive more people to the app, that'd suck too. Though these aren't things I necessarily think will happen, but I've definitely seen it happen way more often than I'd like with websites that go on to create apps. I do think that thinking it's just "an additional option" is a bit naïve since development resources would go into maintaining it and so naturally there would be an incentive for it to justify that. I just don't know what form that is, it could just be as benign as "more people will use it if there's an app."
You can collect far more data with an app than with a website because of device permissions APIs. You can then sell that data to advertisers and also use it to train your models.
For anyone interested in a ChatGPT app until the official one comes out, there is this [WebView wrapper] one (https://github.com/woheller69/gptassist) in F-Droid
I wish they would turn their current website into a PWA, then Android users could install it like an app. (Like wefwef/Voyager)