In my experience, "front-end" these days generally means "web client development", e.g. the opposite of "back-end" (server application).
You're talking about client development in general.
I suppose web clients stole their own term because of the idiosyncrasies with web browsers, like how the server can ship declarative HTML to the browser for a fully-working UI which is a unique phenomenon.
There are issues with this weird distinction though. For example, people will complain how hard "front-end development" is, thinking it's something unique to the web, without knowing that all client development is hard.
You're talking about client development in general.
I suppose web clients stole their own term because of the idiosyncrasies with web browsers, like how the server can ship declarative HTML to the browser for a fully-working UI which is a unique phenomenon.
There are issues with this weird distinction though. For example, people will complain how hard "front-end development" is, thinking it's something unique to the web, without knowing that all client development is hard.