OpenAI's ChatGPT is available on the web, as a mobile app and will be coming to iOS 18 as part of Apple Intelligence in the coming months. There is also an impressive macOS app that just got a major upgrade and more widespread availability.
It's a pretty slick interface and can be triggered by a hotkey, but one common complaint had been that it could often get lost if you had a lot of windows or other apps open.
Now, with a new update, there's side-by-side access to the powerful chatbot which means it can much more easily fit into your workflow — among other new features including custom GPT mentions and enhanced security.
ChatGPT Mac gets a big upgrade
As per OpenAI's release notes: "The macOS desktop app now gives you side-by-side access to ChatGPT with the new companion window. It stays in front of all other windows so you can be more productive while working across ChatGPT and other apps."
This means you can easily refer to the data presented by ChatGPT with a glance, rather than constantly finding the window and putting it in front of your others. its position, keyboard shortcut, and reset time can all be customized within the app's settings.
Elsewhere, the app will offer an expandable view for tables and charts, making it easier to adjust and download charts for other purposes, while there are plenty of bug fixes, too. You can also allow the app to launch when logging in, which is a nice addition, and you can '@mention' GPTs, too.
Combined with "enhanced security for local data storage" and "improved performance when streaming chat responses", it seems this update is well worth a download.
Sadly, Windows users will need to wait — as of the time of writing, you still can't get a native version, so will need to use the web-based version of ChatGPT for now.
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