Anthropic Releases Claude Desktop App for Mac and Windows in Beta

Anthropic released Claude's desktop apps for Mac and Windows on Thursday. The move comes after both OpenAI and Perplexity launched native apps for macOS. Claude desktop for Mac and Windows is currently in beta, however, all users can download and install the app for the device. While the company did not specify if the app version will get any additional features over the web client, it is said that users are getting early access to Claude AI assistant and the Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model with the new apps.

Anthropic Releases Claude Apps for Mac and Windows

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the official handle of Anthropic announced the release of the new desktop apps. For Windows, the AI firm has released separate x64 and arm64 versions of the app. The company also claims that the desktop app will offer a faster and more focused experience. It is also said to be “designed for deep work.”

Interested individuals can download the Mac and Windows desktop apps from here. Notably, Windows users can use the shortcut of Ctrl + Alt + Space to quickly boot up the app from any screen in the entire system. A 9to5Mac report also claims that the macOS app offers easy access to Anthropic's AI assistant as well as the Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model.

The latter's access is also important. Recently, Anthropic introduced the Computer Use tool for Claude, which is powered by 3.5 Sonnet. The capability allows users to prompt the AI to complete a task on the device. While the feature has not yet been rolled out to users, it is understandable why the AI firm needed a dedicated app to make the feature usable.

Computer Use is an agentic AI feature that lets Claude run complex tasks on a desktop, imitating a human user. Interestingly, Claude can imitate keystrokes, button clicks, and cursor movements using specialised software. Adding this ability with computer vision will allow the AI chatbot to see information on the screen and take appropriate action to complete a task.

Apart from this, users can also use the voice mode feature with the desktop apps for Mac and Windows. More details about the apps, such as size, permissions required, and compatible versions, were not shared by the company.