undefined | Better HN

0 pointsethmarks5mo ago0 comments

Genuinely curious here: why is the desktop app so important?

I completely understand the appeal of having local and offline applications, but the ChatGPT desktop app doesn't work without an internet connection anyways. Is it just the convenience? Why is a dedicated desktop app so much better than just opening a browser tab or even using a PWA?

Also, have you looked into open-webui or Msty or other provider-agnostic LLM desktop apps? I personally use Msty with Gemini 2.5 Pro for complex tasks and Cerebras GLM 4.6 for fast tasks.

0 comments

_2d305mo ago

I have a few reasons for the preference:

(1) The ability to add context via a local apps integration into OS level resources is big. With Claude, eg, I hit Option-SPC which brings up a prompt bar. From there, taking a screenshot that will get sent my prompt is as simple as dragging a bounding box. This is great. Beyond that, I can add my own MCP connectors and give my desktop app direct access to relevant context in a way that doesn't work via web UI. It may also be inconvenient to give context to a web UI in some case where, eg, I may have a folder of PDFs I want it to be able to reference.

(2) Its own icon that I can CMD-TAB to is so much nicer. Maybe that works with a PWA? Not really sure.

(3) Even if I can't use an LLM when offline, having access to my chats for context has been repeatedly valuable to me.

I haven't looked at provider-agnostic apps and, TBH, would be wary of them.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse