Perplexity released its desktop app for macOS, available to the public. To the moment of writing, it is also the top application on the App Store. Users who opt-in for early access will get this application installed automatically. In general, the first experience is very positive. It’s not an Electron web-based app. It’s the fully-featured macOS application, which is rather closer to the iOS app that they have. It includes voice mode and some other features that are not available on the website. Maybe one of the first differentiation features would be a set of shortcuts, a quick hot case, allowing users to open the search bar with a quick comment, but also these shortcuts are available for voice mode, file upload, and voice dictation.
Perplexity AI for macOS
The second differentiation feature would obviously be a voice mode, which opens a separate widget with the same UIs on mobile app and the same controls. However, the manual push-to-talk seems to be not available there, and you only will have to rely on the Perplexity’s own logic to understand where it should get interrupted. And it works also in a similar way as on mobile. It gives you a list of results, it can show images on the same widget, etc.
The third addition would be the dictation option, which is not available on the web either, allowing you to use voice to input your search query inside the search bar. One extra option available in the settings menu allows you to set the app to launch on the startup. And that probably would be it in terms of new features in comparison to the web application.
On the downside, the new spaces and file search are not yet available on macOS as well. The same situation is still there on mobile. The newly released Claude 3.5 Sonnet (new) is not available yet either. In the search results, most of the widgets work, but it does seem that financial data is not yet supported over there.
In general, when it comes to feature parity, I think this application should rather be compared with the mobile app rather than with the desktop. But overall, this is an amazing addition for all the users of Perplexity. Having very quick access to the search bar in a separate window could become a big productivity boost for many. Give it a try. If you are not yet a Perplexity Pro subscriber, you can use this link to get a small discount 👀
