AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.
A frontend is (can be) part of an App View. It is quite literally the app you view the network through. There can also be headless app views and app views which have no backend
AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.