Fully agree. I think this question about a proposed name change is a typical example of the XY problem. Make it so that users don’t have to care about the difference. I’d consider myself a medium advanced user in the space of HA users, and a very advanced user in the real world. I don’t even know what decides that certain functionalities need a separate container and others don’t. And tbh I don’t care much either.
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I’m not 100% sold on the idea of changing it to apps; the idea of having apps at two ends of the spectrum (ones to support the end user interacting with the ecosystem and ones that provide supporting infrastructure) just doesn’t quite sit right with me.
I think, though, it’s foolish to consider this proposal separately from a wider proposal for ensuring that all of the naming is still fit for purpose.
I’m also a bit lost as to whether this proposal is backed by any real data that suggests it’s a necessary change - has this come up as an issue in the community survey?
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I can’t vote because you missed “Add-on Apps”.
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Excellent idea.
Whatever 
(It’s just a democracy simulator 
)
IMHO, the term “App” appeared as a marketing term for mobile “App Stores” 
with the increased use of phones slowly evolving the term into a generic for any software. In the usage that reaches my ears, it has become almost meaningless.
I will concede that Music Assistant or AdGuard Home have more of a case to be called an Application (capital A, oldskool) as they have a function all their own and can be run separately (atomic).
The Shelly Integration extends Core for a new device - it has no purpose on its own. It is a driver library, a component, not an Application, not an application.
The Android HA “app” has no purpose without HA itself, so is an “app” due to being in an “app store”, but to me it can’t be an Application.
Again, the issue is not how we define “Application”, but how the term is going to be used here and in Discord, email, etc. We need to choose terms that are distinct and meaningful for effective communication especially for non-native English speakers.
This disucssion already shows Application is confused with “App Store” , app, etc.
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Put me in the camp of App Add-on or similar for existing external documentation continuity reasons if a change is indeed done.
But simply renaming Add-ons to Apps blurs a distinction of what an Add-ons role actually is in the context of HA vs. what an App is on a phone or similar. In the HA case they are adding to the core functionality of HA itself - and are tightly coupled to HA’s overall functioning and it’s comparatively narrow end purpose.
In the phone context, Apps are more along the lines of something the user installs and then interacts with in a way that is largely independent of the phone itself or most of the other apps also installed on the phone. The phone device just a means to host them all in one place, so the Apps in the case of phones isn’t typically adding to the function of, or integrating with, all of the other things also running on the phone. In the HA case they (Add-ons) do.
So in reality the HA server and it’s SW core isn’t truly the equivalent to a phone type device, or even a typical desktop computer for that matter. The HA back-end HW/SW is much more narrowly defined in it’s purpose.
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Why not Add-on Services
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That’s not going to be good.
We used to have services before it was renamed to actions.
With old guides still existing that could be very confusing.
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