Comment by isityettime

10 hours ago

The new app is an unbelievable mess. Settings are senselessly organized, too. The whole thing has this aesthetic slickness and then underneath it's like the people who make it have never even used it.

It's not surprising that it's pulled in absolutely massive dependencies, although I'm not sure it's the wrong call on some operating systems. LibreOffice is pretty tried and true.

> The new app is an unbelievable mess.

How so? On Windows, I like it (version 26.825.51511).

Works fast (like modern Claude Code desktop, their old versions were bad), has pretty okay UI (could have an option for wider main text display, like ZCode added), allows you to change the fonts and shells and some of the layout stuff.

I mean currently I have Paseo hooked up to OpenCode that runs the actual models and often that works a bit better for me, but as a standalone desktop offering, the ChatGPT app has been okay in my experience. I can kinda see why ZCode copied them a bunch (though ZCode also lets you run 3rd party models, which is actually preferable to me).

I do like the idea that Claude Code desktop had in the earlier versions, 3 tabs - chat, work, code, except they kinda went in the direction of merging chat and work which was very ehhhh. The ChatGPT app doesn't even have a proper split between chat and work/code.

Personally, I like the 3-pane organization (sidebar, chat, browser). I turned ChatGPT into my bookkeeper and social post writing/kanban space, and it works well for these script+browser workflows on desktop.

However, all of this is confusing:

- the ChatGPT/Codex split on desktop

- Chat/Work split on mobile

- how you remotely access each chat from your phone (some of my most valuable chats are buried in Remote)

- which chats propagate from device to device, and which remain on that device

  • > - the ChatGPT/Codex split on desktop

    Do tell, cause I run the "ChatGPT" program on Windows to use both the normal Chat and Codex (side menu items). I think its a more recent change.

HOW DOES IT WORK FOR YOU PEOPLE?!

Istg on windows, I can't get codex app, new chatgpt or chatgpt classic to work without hanging on even a moderately sized chat. I tried all of the different tricks people recommended but that shit just crawls. It was stable at some point, classic that is, but then it started being a laggy mess.

I've uninstalled new chatgpt/codex app. I can't access phone chats on it, I can't use the desktop allocated chat messages on it. I have to use up codex limits. I am so surprised that OpenAI ships that hot garbage on windows.

  • Mac Neo can be had for $600 now, and it runs Codex incredibly well!

    But even on the Windows machine, if you Tailscale into a free tier VM for the workloads, you'd probably have a much better time.

    Just leave Codex itself on your machine, if you set up computer use it will happily set up all of this for you while you have lunch.

  • Windows has never felt more archaic than now. I can't imagine trying to do work on a Windows machine in the age of LLMs.

    If there is anything that LLMs are rock solid at these days, it's unix terminal usage.

They removed the global shortcut to show a portable chat overlay. That one entrypoint must've been the source of at least 80% of my chats, yet apparently it was considered too vestigial to keep.

The thing that blows my mind about it is that they straight up copied Claude Code and tried to frame it as some sort of incredible accomplishment. There are no new ideas, no insightful UI/UX paradigms, no killer features. They say money can't buy taste. The ChatGPT/Codex app is proof that it cannot buy creativity either.

And when you go to their forums it says "This forum is not for discussing the ChatGPT App..."

..like excuse me? Where the fuck else would we post feedback about it?