Tim Hardwick
On May 13, OpenAI announced during its spring update that it would release a ChatGPT desktop app for Mac in the “coming weeks” and said it had begun rolling out the app to some ChatGPT Plus subscribers ahead of a wider launch.
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After testing the app for a few days, we thought we'd share some of the reasons why ChatGPT users might find the Mac app a useful AI-powered addition to their apps. workflow.
Access the ChatGPT launcher
It has been possible to use the OpenAI chatbot on the iPhone for some time through the official ChatGPT iOS app, but most desktop users have relied on visiting a website in a browser. With ChatGPT for Mac, everything becomes much more integrated. Using the Option + Space keyboard shortcut, you can instantly bring up the app's launcher and ask the conversational AI to help you with a task or project, but you'll also get quick access to several other key features.
The small window that appears on your desktop is similar to when you invoke Spotlight (Command + Space) in macOS: it sits above any windows or apps you have open and feels just as convenient. The paperclip button lets you add a file or photo you might want help with, and adding an attachment sends it to ChatGPT, where you can ask more questions in the app's dedicated window.
Make Screenshot
Clicking on the paperclip icon also opens up some useful additional options, such as the ability to take a screenshot of any open application window (even if it's off-screen) or the entire desktop, and request it using ChatGPT . For example, we requested a screenshot of MacRumors' recent article on Apple Music's 10 Best Albums of All Time and asked ChatGPT to provide a summary of top critics' reviews of each album, which it did.
In another case, we had ChatGPT extract text from a drop-down selection menu on Apple's website and format it in HTML as an unordered list, which was done in seconds. From checking an open document to getting troubleshooting help, it's easy to imagine all sorts of scenarios where this feature could help save time and improve productivity.
Currently, it is not possible to directly query ChatGPT about what appears on your Mac's screen, but OpenAI says this feature will come in a future update.
Take Photo
“Take Photo” is another option that you can access can be obtained using the paperclip button. When you click it, it automatically displays the current output from your Mac's FaceTime camera or connected webcam.
This is useful if you just want to hold the object you want to query in front of your Mac. However, you can also select the camera of a nearby iPhone, which gives you more freedom to move around and frame your subject more carefully.
The only problem now is that the shutter button stays on the camera image on your Mac's screen rather than switching to your iPhone. This is likely an oversight that OpenAI will fix soon.
Configure ChatGPT
In the application settings (accessed through ChatPGT ➝ Settings… in the menu bar when the main one is active application window) there are several options to configure how ChatGPT works. You can control whether OpenAI uses your content to train its models, as well as change desktop keyboard shortcuts and enable/disable GPT features, including web browsing, the DALL·E image generator, and the code interpreter.
You can also add your own instructions that affect ChatGPT's response (also called hints). This way, you can make the answers more formal or more casual, or specify how long or short they should be. You can also personalize ChatGPT to cosplay a specific profession or character. If you want it to respond like a thesis supervisor or, for example, Samuel L. Jackson, you can specify this in the settings.
The main window of the application also allows you to access your conversation history and switch between any custom with the GPT tags you parked in the sidebar. Not only that, you can choose which version of ChatGPT you want to request. For example, implementing the new multimodal GPT-4o model increases response time, improves reasoning capabilities, and provides better understanding of images and other types of content.
Voice Chat
When interacting with ChatGPT, there are buttons in the main application window that allow you to dictate a request or start a two-way voice chat with the bot. This sounds great in theory, but in practice there is a delay between responses and you have to wait for ChatGPT to stop talking before you can give it a further request or command. It is also not possible to access other features such as taking photos using your voice. Luckily, there's still a lot to be done on this front.
In OpenAI's spring update, the company showed off ChatGPT's new real-time voice conversation feature, which includes the ability to interrupt the chatbot and redirect the conversation. . At the time of writing, the ChatGPT Mac app does not support these features, but OpenAI says we should see them added to GPT-4o in the coming weeks.
Summary
If you're a regular ChatGPT user on Mac, using the official OpenAI app should be your primary method of interacting with the AI chatbot. The first version of the client is amazingly refined, and accessing the launcher via a keyboard shortcut makes using ChatGPT faster and easier than ever before. It also offers a glimpse into a possible future in which ChatGPT is fully integrated with Apple's operating systems.
- Apple finalizes OpenAI deal to bring ChatGPT features to iOS 18
- Apple finalizes OpenAI deal to bring ChatGPT features to iOS 18
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Please note that the ChatGPT app for Mac is currently available only to Plus subscribers ($20 per month), and only a limited number of those users were asked to download it. We will say that there are links on social media to download the app, and that there is a pretty foolproof way for any Plus subscriber to bypass the waitlist and make it work. But if you have the patience to wait in line, OpenAI says the ChatGPT Mac app will be available to users “more widely in the coming weeks.”
Tags: ChatGPT, OpenAI [ 136 comments ]
- Apple finalizes OpenAI deal to bring ChatGPT features to iOS 18
