Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2024 April 26

= April 26 =

Tik Tok
I don't use or care about Tik Tok but for some reason I thought it was like a cross between Youtube and Twitter, where people could post and view videos using either an app or a web browser. But some of the stuff in the news about banning it depicts it as accessed purely by an app, not a browser. Is that correct? Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * About two years ago I uploaded a few videos to TikTok on a desktop web browser and it worked just fine. I haven't opened TikTok since then, so it might've changed. —Panamitsu (talk) 21:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has an article about TikTok that should tell you all you need to know. Shantavira|feed me 13:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should, it's a pity. Is TikTok mainly used as the app version rather than the browser version? Does the browser version lack the tools for video recording and adding sound effects and music? Do web users face other annoyances such as all their videos being automatically cropped and letterboxed? Is there an issue around compatibility with Apple? When our article says "app", does it sometimes really mean "the app and the web version" and sometimes not?
 * I don't know of good references to cite for any of these questions, but searching around gave me hints. Card Zero  (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have never used TikTok but it sounds like the web version lacked a mobile version originally [//www.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/pggtfy/how_to_use_tiktok_from_a_browser_on_mobile/]. It was only perhaps on 2021 or 2022 that they began to introduce a decent PWA with mobile support and bring the UI etc over to their PWA plus also supporting larger screens with a decent UI [//chromeunboxed.com/tiktok-web-app-pwa-play-store/] [//www.tigren.com/blog/tiktok-pwa/]. Also although I don't have a source for this, while some like the Chrome Unboxed writer might like TikTok on a larger screen device, TikTok somewhat akin to Instagram is extremely mobile centric with their weird aspect ratio etc intended to be viewed on mobile devices. (Somewhat similar to Instagram.) Note that while the screenshots might have been in landscape, I can't help wondering if they mostly watch TikTok with the screen portrait even on their ChromeBook, something which might be possible there and with some laptops but definitely difficult on many desktops. In any case, mobile targeted seems to fit with the demographic they've had success with. And while plenty of people hate the often fairly app centric mobile ecosystem where everything seems to want to be an app, and I mean an actual app rather than a PWA, even if the app is only a glorified web front-end; I'm not sure this the case for most of their audience who might prefer an actual app. (Also decent video apps are often a little better than just glorified web frontends.) In other words while TikTok web might be a real thing including possibly a decent PWA, there's a good chance this is something only a tiny portion of their audience use. Also while TikTok might potentially have a decent PWA nowadays I suspect it's still the case that content creation features on the web are still much more limited [//metricool.com/tiktok-online-without-downloading/]. And AFAIK TikTok is still a place where a lot of the popular content is just something someone quickly shot on their phone and did some basic editing via the TikTok app. Not a place like Youtube etc where a lot of the popular content nowadays may be edited to a high degree in Adobe Premier or other professional video editing programs, often even by professional editors. So the probably more limited creation features on the web is probably a big deal for many creators. (To be clear, both exist on both platforms, we're talking matters of degrees. Remember also that TikTok videos tend to be short, so while there may be major creators who do such editing elsewhere, there might not be enough of them producing enough content. Plus even if they were it might get repetitive or boring if that's all people see. One thing many media sources do report on is TikTok's algorithms being extremely effective at serving people content they enjoy. This BBC article on TikTok in India is possibly illustrative of wider trends in TikTok content [//www.bbc.com/future/article/20240426-the-ghosts-of-indias-tiktok-social-media-ban].) Nil Einne (talk) 06:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)