Technologies

Your iPhone Now Has ChatGPT AI, Too

OpenAI says an Android app is coming «soon.»

OpenAI on Thursday dropped a ChatGPT app for iOS. The new app is free, and it gives you a way to take OpenAI’s AI chatbot on the go.

The app works on iPhones and iPads, supports voice input and syncs your history across devices. The rollout of the iOS app begins in the US and will expand to more countries in the coming weeks, OpenAI said.

Android users will get their own version «soon,» the company said.

OpenAI kicked off the AI rush with the release of ChatGPT in November. GPT-4, an update to the large language model that powers the ChatGPT chatbot, was released in March. According to OpenAI, GPT-4 has fewer flaws, produces more-nuanced results and handles more-complex tasks than earlier versions. ChatGPT draws on the huge data sets used to train GPT-4 to answer questions and perform tasks, like passing the bar exam. GPT-4 is available to those who pay $20 per month for ChatGPT Plus.

OpenAI began rolling out plugins for ChatGPT last month but has denied it’s working on GPT-5 yet following an open letter signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and others at the end of March. The letter urged labs to take at least a six-month pause in artificial intelligence development due to the «profound risks» to society.

In February, Microsoft entered the AI chatbot realm with Bing AI search, which makes use of ChatGPT, and for which Microsoft earlier this week launched widgets on Android and iOS. Rival Google followed with AI Bard in March. The waitlist to try Bard has now been removed, with the service publicly available as of this week.

Chinese giant Alibaba also unveiled a ChatGPT rival, with both Chinese and English capabilities, while Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has created an artificial intelligence company called X.AI.

CNET has broken down the performance of ChatGPT, Bing and Google Bard to work out which AI chatbot is the most helpful.

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to create some personal finance explainers that are edited and fact-checked by our editors. For more, see this post.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Dec. 5 #642

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Dec. 5, No. 642.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one, and the theme is interesting. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Feeling peckish?

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Can I see a menu?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BAKE, BAKER, BONE, BONES, SIRS, FUNS, FACT, BUTT, DIET, DIETS, GREW, STEW, GOUT, DINE, NEST, NETS, TEAK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

BAKERY, CAFE, BISTRO, BUFFET, BREWERY, STEAKHOUSE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is DININGOUT. To find it, start with the D that is three letters to the right on the top row, and wind down.

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Dec. 5

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Dec. 5.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Three of the clues involve a now-infamous Gen Z/Gen Alpha joke, so you might want to have a young person nearby. Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Beaver’s building project
Answer: DAM

4A clue: Unit of distance originally equivalent to 1,000 paces
Answer: MILE

5A clue: Number of dwarfs or deadly sins
Answer: SEVEN

6A clue: Extra-large film format
Answer: IMAX

7A clue: Crosses (out)
Answer: XES

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Difficult-to-work-with stars
Answer: DIVAS

2D clue: U.S. soccer star ___ Morgan
Answer: ALEX

3D clue: Roughly half of the adult population
Answer: MEN

4D clue: 5-Down-5-Across, for one
Answer: MEME

5D clue: Broadway musical about the wives of Henry VIII
Answer: SIX

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Technologies

The Mystery of the iPhone 17 Pro’s Missing Night Mode for Portraits

Is it a bug? Is it a technical issue? Or did Apple just yank a camera feature that wasn’t popular?

It’s a mystery. Night mode isn’t available in Portrait Mode on the iPhone 17 Pro, and no one seems to know why. Yet.

Night mode automatically brightens photos and captures more details, even in low-light conditions. You can adjust the exposure time manually. In Portrait mode, the camera focuses sharply on the subject you’re snapping and blurs the background, creating a depth-of-field effect.

The first clue that Night mode for Portrait mode was gone came from an Apple support document titled Take Night mode photos with your iPhone camera. It states what many iPhone aficionados already know: «Night mode automatically brightens photos and captures more detail in low light.»

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Night mode for the iPhone 17 Pro is listed in two separate parts of the iPhone online user guide (here and also here) for selfies and time-lapse photos. But it isn’t included on the guide’s list for snapping Night mode photos in Portrait mode. The feature is still available on iPhone Pro and Pro Max on the 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 series.

Upon investigation, CNET staffers verified that, indeed, Night mode is no longer an option in Portrait mode with the iPhone 17 Pro.

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

When the iPhone 17 Pro was launched in September, Andrew Lanxon, CNET’s lead photographer in Europe, was impressed by the camera upgrades over the iPhone 16 Pro, including optical zoom that doubled to 8x, a telephoto camera sensor 56% larger than before and 48 megapixels of resolution.

Lanxon, a professional photographer and YouTuber, was excited to get shooting with the iPhone 17 Pro. But apparently, he will have to do without Night mode in Portrait mode.

Why did Apple do it?

Why was Night mode removed? «There doesn’t appear to be a hardware reason for it,» said CNET senior writer Jeff Carlson. «The Lidar camera that helps with low-light focusing and depth perception is still there. Perhaps it’s a software issue, but as of the iOS 26.2 release candidate, the feature isn’t present.»

Carlson found it curious that it’s taken three months since the launch of the new pro model before people noticed that it’s missing. He speculates that the feature was possibly removed because it «wasn’t being used and Apple could devote other processing resources elsewhere,» he said. «Perhaps something broke in the development of the new operating system and revamped Camera app, and it hasn’t been a high enough priority to fix in the regular release schedule.

«People have gotten used to having iPhone models that enable shots that are otherwise difficult for smartphone cameras, especially on a flagship like the iPhone 17 Pro,» Carlson said. «I hope the feature returns to give everyone the most control over the photos they capture.»

One parallel might be what Samsung did earlier this year — removing S Pen Bluetooth connectivity on the new S25 Ultra. Samsung said they removed the feature because not many people were using it. Is Apple doing the same thing with Night mode for portraits?

Some people miss it, some don’t

A subreddit on the topic appeared to be a mix of «who cares» and «oh darn.» Redditor kaoss_pad was «low key happy» that the feature had vanished, saying that «it would often surprise me and activate when I didn’t want it and ruin a moment.»

Some Redditors weren’t even aware of the feature. CultofCedar posted, «lol didn’t even notice that wasn’t a thing,» and Successful-Cover5433 wrote, «I didn’t even know you could.»

A couple of folks weren’t happy about the mysterious disappearance, including nsfdrag, who posted, «Kind of a bummer, I like the feature.»