Not just their coding products. Compare Claude Desktop / ChatGPT Classic to Gemini Desktop... Gemini desktop is barbaric with less usability / polish and more UI bugs than its online web counterpart.

I wasn't able to give the new ChatGPT desktop app a try because it insists on phone number for the registration flow even though I'm using a free tier.

> even though I'm using a free tier

Erm, that's to be expected. GPUs ain't free. Anyone can make a free account and cost them potentially infinite compute, so a phone number is a way to lock that down. Might not be the "best" way, but hey: it's free.