2026-07-12 06:38:39
One more link from OpenAI’s Help Center, this one explaining how to upgrade from the old Mac app to the new “super” app version:
Follow the prompt in the app to download the new ChatGPT desktop app. Then sign in with the same ChatGPT account.
The new app may install alongside your current app. If both remain installed, you will see:
- ChatGPT: The new app with Chat, Work, and Codex.
- ChatGPT Classic: The previous ChatGPT desktop app. You can continue using it; no migration is required at launch. It continues to receive model updates, bug fixes, security patches, and support for its existing Enterprise capabilities. New agent features may be available only in the new app.
None of this has been my experience. I had the existing old ChatGPT app installed on three different Macs. On all three of them, the built-in “Check for Updates” command only installs the latest version of the classic app. This is good, I suppose. But if you’re not aware from following the news that OpenAI released an altogether new “super” app for MacOS and Windows, you’d never know it from the Check for Updates command built into the classic Mac app.
So I don’t see “the prompt in the app to download the new ChatGPT desktop app”. If I download the new app manually, I get a disk image. After mounting the disk image, the instructions say to double-click the “ChatGPT” app on the disk image — not to drag it to the Applications folder. If I do that while the old ChatGPT app is still running, it bounces back and forth a few times but nothing new gets installed and nothing old gets removed or renamed. I’m just left with the classic ChatGPT app, still named “ChatGPT”.
If I run the installer on the disk image when the old ChatGPT app is not running, the old app gets replaced by the new one in my Applications folder, and the old app is moved to the Trash. There is no app named “ChatGPT Classic”.
I mean, their Help document does say “the new app may install alongside your current app”, and “if both remained installed”, so they seem just as confused as I am. And while you can, for now at least, just remain on the old version of the app and still get model updates and bug fixes, there is seemingly no way to download a new copy of the classic ChatGPT Mac app if you don’t already have a copy. The update installation is seemingly non-deterministic.
This is an app with over a billion users. I know there aren’t a billion users of the native Mac app, but, still. It’s one of the most popular apps any company has ever made, and the biggest update they’ve ever shipped is an incoherent confusing mess.
2026-07-12 06:24:20
OpenAI Help Center, “Where Work and Codex are available”:
Work is available on ChatGPT web and mobile for eligible paid plans. Work is also available in the ChatGPT desktop app when included for your plan and workspace.
Work on web and mobile runs in the cloud. Work in the desktop app can also use local files and desktop apps with your permission. At launch, cloud Work conversations do not appear in desktop Work; desktop Work threads and local files remain on that computer.
Codex is available as a mode in the ChatGPT desktop app. It can work with local folders, repositories, terminals, and developer tools. Codex is not a selectable mode on web or mobile. You can access supported desktop Codex tasks from the Remote tab in the ChatGPT mobile app, but those tasks do not become web or mobile chat history.
These three paragraphs, from OpenAI’s own Help Center, sound more like a critic’s scathing review of what’s wrong with the new ChatGPT “super” app than a guide to how to use it.
2026-07-12 06:16:21
Benedict Evans with a succinct review on Threads:
Wow, what a total mess.
What is the difference between a project, a task and a chat?
Why did chats get a crappy floating window but tasks and projects don’t?
Why does choosing ‘plugins’ get me ‘templates’?
Am I not allowed to finish ‘setup’ if I don’t use Slack or Google Drive?
I forget how I made the Setup dickbar disappear despite my not using Slack or Google Drive. It was confusing.
It is sometimes observed that in companies dominated by internal politics, their shipped product (and public keynotes) reflect the company’s org chart. That’s never been truer than with the new ChatGPT app. OpenAI’s internal org chart is a complete disorganized mess. This new app perfectly reflects that.
The old ChatGPT app was focused. That’s the app that still ships for mobile (which includes iPad, which tells you whether OpenAI thinks iPad is a real computer or a big iPhone), and is, for some Mac users, left installed on their systems as “ChatGPT Classic”. The new app is an incredibly confusing sloppy mess. At a glance it looks like a polished app. But the UI is just slop. It has the veneer of a polished app without actually being organized or structured or labeled in ways that add clarity and coherence. It’s playing dress-up as a big-boy app. My understanding from people adjacent to OpenAI is that the company’s senior executives are singularly consumed with FOMO obsession regarding Anthropic, and the only real clout within the company belongs to the AI researchers. Not product designers or app craftspeople. What the researchers say goes, and with this update, we can see their level of taste in app design.
The app icon for the new “super” app should be the Homer.
2026-07-12 03:43:35
Fred Vogelstein (Om’s partner at Crazy Stupid Tech):
We met a week later at his outdoor office — a bench in SF’s South Park. He told me that he was going emeritus at True Ventures, the VC firm, and that he was going to spend more of his time writing.
It was awesome to see him. Sitting on a bench with Om could be quasi religious. He talked so softly and deliberately that it forced you to slow down, lean in and forget about everything else.
What became clear was that we actually saw the world the same way. We didn’t agree what Wired should be doing about it. But we did agree on this: While everyone was fixated on big tech, an explosion in tech innovation not seen in a generation was taking place. We both agreed that not enough people were writing about it.
“Maybe we should do something together then,” I said.
So saddened to hear about @om. His writing was one of the reasons I went into tech journalism. Right out of college, I was working at a PR agency and started reading his site. It inspired me to start blogging.
Years later, he tried to recruit me. Even after I went elsewhere, he’d send me notes telling me how proud he was of my work. He’d often review my reviews, so here’s mine of him: Generous with his time. Honest with his feedback. Endlessly encouraging to those coming up behind him.
Very sad to hear about the passing of @om. He shared two lasting lessons with me: the first when I was a cub tech reporter at the SF Chronicle; he interviewed me for a job but told me he didn’t think I could hack it at GigaOm because newspaper writers were too slow. It taught me that I needed to get out of print media ASAP.
The second was many years later, when I was having a drink with him and some other reporters. We asked him for advice. “Never name a blog after yourself,” he said. RIP
One day on Twitter I got a DM from someone with the handle @om.
“I don’t know who this is,” I thought, “but damn that is a great handle!”
Then I peaked at the follower count: over 1 million!
“WTF? Who is this???” I thought.
I’d never — then or since — been contacted by someone with such a high profile online.
How was I even on this person’s radar?
Om seemingly read everything.
Jason Hiner, in a post on LinkedIn:
This is the opening anecdote from “Chapter Six: The Blogger” from my 2016 book, Follow the Geeks, co-authored with Lyndsey Gilpin. Om once told me that “For three years, it was every day a rejection” as he tried to break into tech journalism. This was how he finally broke through.
David Churbuck checked his voicemail. There was a message from someone looking for a job.
Because of the guy’s thick Indian accent, David could barely make out what he was saying, except that he worked for a wire service down on Wall Street and was a big Forbes fan. The guy heard that Forbes was going to be one of the first media companies to launch its magazine on the web and he wanted to come help.
David ignored the message. He had a small team and hardly any budget.
Then he got a fax. It was from this guy, explaining why he was a perfect fit to join the team.
The next day, the guy left another message. If David would just give him a call, it would be great to talk with him. He wouldn’t regret it.
Ignore.
The following day, he left another. Whatever time limit there was for voicemails, this guy always used up every minute.
Still, David ignored it.
And then the guy started getting creative.
[...]
One of the journalists, Michael Noer, said half jokingly, “Just call the guy in!” So, partly out of admiration, and partly out of pure morbid curiosity, David called him back.
One interview. Fifteen minutes. That was all it took for David to hire Om Malik.
“They do not sell themselves”, Om told me in a separate story from that same time in his life.
Hiner made the entire chapter available to read as a handsome PDF. It’s so good, and so utterly Om. It’s a crackerjack good read about the very early “WWW” days of the web. A bit:
Om is charming and disarming, forceful and accommodating. He has an easy smile, a quiet, melodic voice, and a handsome face. Once he opens his mouth, it’s obvious how much he reads and how thirsty he is to learn. It’s rare to meet someone who is ready to debate you on almost any topic, but who’s also genuinely curious about your life and your opinion. It all makes the burly journalist one of the most huggable people on Earth. That’s what David was up against when he met Om. He didn’t stand a chance.
“It was destiny,” said David, with a self-deprecating laugh. “It was total destiny.”
Om’s close friend, photographer Christopher Michel, published “Om the Great”, an enormous gallery of portraits of him. Here’s just one of hundreds:
Lastly, here’s a story from Andrew Sasaki, which he sent me by email, and I’m reproducing with his permission. It’s the perfect Om story:
I met Om briefly at a tech event in NYC around 2008 or so. He was talking with a friend of mine, and when I walked up he introduced himself: “Hi, I’m Om.”
“‘Om’ like ‘Om Malik’?” I asked.
This amused him greatly.
“Yes, exactly like Om Malik”, he said.
A couple of years later the iPad had just launched, and I saw my friend again at another industry event. I asked him a question related to the unprecedented development effort we were already seeing around the new platform that didn’t yet have a single compelling use case.
“You know who I bet would know about that? Om Malik”, he said, and gave me Om’s email address.
I hesitated to bother Om, but eventually reached out with my question. “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met a couple of years ago, and…” blah blah blah.
Naturally, there was no answer. Why would there be? He doesn’t know me from Adam, and he’s Om Fucking Malik.
Except there was an answer about 4 days later. Om started off by apologizing for the delay in responding, but he had taken the time to research his answer before writing to me. And of course, his answer was thoughtful, insightful, and absolutely correct. I was gobsmacked at the generosity he had shown replying to someone he didn’t even know. He gave no indication that he even remembered me until his signature line:
“Exactly Like Om Malik”
2026-07-12 02:02:17
Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas):
Apple was quickly alarmed by OpenAI’s recruiting drive, which included poaching senior hardware and design leaders and ravaging several teams across its engineering organizations. The practice continued as recently as June, when OpenAI lured away Apple’s smart glasses chief. That executive, Paul Meade, was quickly shown the door at Apple and not given the opportunity to stay on for a transition period, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Regarding Tang Tan, who is at the center of Apple’s lawsuit:
Tan was famous for taking risks at Apple and “flying very close to the sun” during his 25-year career, according to someone who worked with him. “Tang is well known for moving fast, playing fast and loose and breaking things,” said the person, who asked not to be identified while discussing former colleagues.
Gurman broke the story of Meade leaving Apple for OpenAI on June 26, writing then:
Meade’s departure is a blow to the iPhone maker. He has led hardware engineering for the Vision Pro headset — once seen as Apple’s next major computing platform — for seven years. Apple and OpenAI spokespeople declined to comment. He has also been responsible for the development of display-free Apple smart glasses meant to vault the company into the AI wearables space next year and compete with a growing category pioneered by Meta Platforms Inc.
2026-07-11 11:45:00
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“You know who this is.”
“Yes I do, yes I do. I sent a guy to deliver the package ... he didn’t call. Is everything alright?”
“Tell you what. Forget the money.”
