‘This change could be disastrous’: The ChatGPT app’s latest update has broken some of its most important features, and users are up in arms
OpenAI has made a classic software mistake. It merged two products, changed the interface, and called the result progress while many users saw disruption. The latest desktop update folds ChatGPT and Codex into one app and reshapes the layout around that choice. On paper, that sounds efficient. Real use tells a harsher story. People build habits around speed, location, and trust. Move those things too aggressively and the app stops feeling helpful. It starts feeling clumsy. That is why the backlash matters. Users report slower workflows, hidden conversations, missing projects, and disappearing Custom GPTs.
The merger problem
The biggest shift is the merger itself. ChatGPT and Codex no longer stand apart. OpenAI has pushed them into one so-called super app, with a toggle for ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Codex. Product teams love this kind of consolidation. Users often hate it. The old ChatGPT app now survives as ChatGPT Classic, while the former Codex app has become the main version. That detail matters. The coding tool didn’t just join the regular app. It seems to have taken charge. OpenAI appears to believe one container can serve everyone. That idea sounds clean in a strategy meeting. Daily work is messier.
Why the interface anger is real
The redesign has hit a nerve because it breaks muscle memory. Recent conversations, once easy to see in the sidebar, now sit behind extra clicks. Only a few threads appear at first, while older chats require users to open another view. That may sound minor to outsiders. It isn’t. Many people treat old conversations as active workspaces, not disposable history. Reports of missing or buried projects make the problem worse. The same goes for Custom GPTs, which some users say have vanished from sight. A productivity app lives or dies by retrieval. If stored context becomes harder to access, the app isn’t becoming simpler. It is becoming slower.
Trust has taken a hit
The strongest complaints come from people who depended on the app’s structure. If projects get scattered into a plain list of chats, the app loses one of its most useful strengths. That matters for anyone juggling research, legal documents, coding tasks, or long-running work threads. Critics have also slammed the new build for feeling bloated. John Gruber noted that the old Mac app was about 159MB, while the new one balloons to roughly 1.5GB. That is not a subtle change. It signals a product that has grown heavier while becoming less clear.
The super app trap
The phrase super app tends to promise power while delivering confusion. That danger hangs over this update. ChatGPT Work and ChatGPT Codex may share plugins and some abilities, yet they still point toward different uses. One tries to feel approachable. The other exposes more technical detail. Putting both inside one shell may look smart from OpenAI’s side. From the user’s side, it risks becoming a junk drawer. What is the app supposed to be now. A chat assistant. A coding station. A task manager. Everything at once usually means compromise. Some Mac users report no easy route back after updating. That deepens the sense of being trapped inside a bad decision.
OpenAI can still recover from this, though recovery will require more than small fixes and polite acknowledgments. The company needs to restore what people actually lost. Easy access to recent chats. Clear project organization. Visible Custom GPTs. A real path back to the older experience for users who preferred it. This mess exposes a larger truth about AI software. The magic doesn’t live only in the model. It lives in the workflow around the model. Break that workflow and even powerful technology feels blunt. OpenAI didn’t just ship a new look. It disrupted continuity, and continuity is precious in tools people use every day. If that lesson gets ignored, user anger will turn into lasting distrust.