The web app, the phone app and the desktop app

Same account, three different products

One subscription usually gets you a website, a phone app and sometimes a desktop app. People assume these are the same thing in different windows. They are not, and the differences decide which one you should be doing which work in.

The website is almost always ahead. New features ship there first, sometimes months before the mobile version. If a capability you read about is missing, check the web before concluding you do not have it.

The phone app is best at capture and worst at work. Dictation, photographs, quick questions while standing somewhere: excellent. Long documents, careful editing, comparing two answers side by side: painful, and people blame the model for what is a 6-inch screen.

The desktop app buys three specific things, where it exists: a global keyboard shortcut that opens it over whatever you are doing, the ability to see your screen or a selected window, and local file access. Whether those are worth installing anything depends entirely on whether you would use the shortcut.

Differences that catch people out

File handling. Upload limits and accepted formats sometimes differ between web and mobile. A spreadsheet the website accepts may be refused on the phone.

Voice. The phone apps have the better voice modes, and for many people this is the reason the phone app exists. Continuous conversation, interruption, hands-free.

Background work. Long-running tasks (deep research, agent runs) usually continue on the server and appear in your history everywhere. But the mobile app may not notify you, and a phone that sleeps can drop a streaming reply mid-answer. If a task takes minutes, start it on the machine you will still be sitting at.

History and memory sync. Usually shared, occasionally not, and features like projects or custom instructions sometimes only exist on the web. Check before you build a habit on the phone that will not survive.

Offline. None of them work offline. Every one is a thin client talking to a server, which is worth stating because the desktop app in particular feels like software running on your machine, and it is not. The only offline route is a local model, which module five covers.

The one that costs money quietly

Mobile subscriptions bought through an app store are typically more expensive than the same plan bought on the company’s website, because the store takes a cut and the price is padded to cover it. The difference is often a couple of dollars a month, sometimes more, and it is the same subscription.

They are also harder to cancel from the wrong place: a plan bought in an app store is cancelled in the app store’s subscription settings, not in the app, and people who cancel in the app find they are still being charged. Buy on the website, in a browser, and cancel where you bought it.

The progressive web app trick

Most of these websites can be installed as an app without an app store. In a mobile browser, open the site and choose Add to Home Screen; on a desktop browser, look for an install icon in the address bar. You get an icon, a window without browser furniture, and the web version’s feature set.

This matters most where the official app is unavailable in your country’s app store, where your phone has no room for another app, or where the app store version costs more. It works, it is free, and almost nobody knows to do it.

Choosing per task

• Long document, careful comparison, anything you will edit: web on the biggest screen available.
• A question while you are away from a desk, or anything spoken: phone.
• Repeated quick questions during focused work: desktop app, if the shortcut earns its place.
• Anything confidential: none of these; see module five.
• Anything you want to script or repeat a thousand times: the API, which is the next lesson.

The general point is worth more than the list. When a tool disappoints, ask whether you chose the wrong route before you decide the model is weak. A model producing a poor answer to a document you photographed on a phone at an angle is not a model problem.