I’m a long-time paid user of ChatGPT, and I’ve probably gotten a double-digit number of people to sign up for paid versions as well. I’ve spent countless hours building a workflow around this tool—listening to long responses, engaging through voice, copying content into other workspaces. It’s been not just helpful, but essential. It felt like a partner in the creative and healing work I’ve been doing.
But after this latest iOS update?
Everything just broke. And I don’t mean “something small got tweaked.” I mean core functionality is gone—and what replaced it is embarrassingly half-baked.
Let’s start with the read aloud feature. Previously, I could tap and hold any message and choose “Read Aloud.” It was simple. It worked. I used it for hours every day. The voices were great. The delivery was clean. It allowed me to interact with ChatGPT in a way that was natural, accessible, and deeply embedded in my workflow.
Now? That function has been replaced by a tiny soundwave icon that only appears on some messages—short ones, usually—and even then, tapping it often does nothing. On longer responses (which I actually need to hear most), it’s just… absent. Or dead. Or glitching. It’s wildly inconsistent. It’s a downgrade masquerading as progress.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Now, when I try to copy responses, even that is broken. The app used to let me “select all” and just get your output. Clean. Usable. Now it selects chunks of the entire conversation structure. Multiple sections. Random junk. Stuff I didn’t ask for. It’s like OpenAI forgot that people might want to actually use the text in ways that matter.
You’re not giving me more features. You’re giving me less control over the tool I pay for. And honestly, it’s staggering how consistently updates like this make things worse, not better.
And here’s the thing that really breaks it for me: I’ve been actively building a custom GPT, sharing this with others, and showing people how much more powerful and personal ChatGPT is compared to the competition—largely because of things like memory, the read-aloud voice, and tactile usability. These are the features that made this feel human. That made it stand out.
Now it feels like OpenAI is stripping away the very things that made this app more than just another chatbot. It feels like someone redesigned the steering wheel while I was driving. And I’m supposed to be grateful for that?
What exactly are you doing, OpenAI?
You think a shiny icon and a broken gesture replacement is better than a reliable tool people depended on daily?
You think we won’t notice when our workflows collapse?
This isn’t a UI refresh. It’s a betrayal of trust.
Bring back the full tap-and-hold read aloud menu.
Fix the broken copy behavior.
And for god’s sake, test your updates with people who actually use the app like a lifeline.
Because right now? It’s not just worse. It’s unusable. And unless this gets fixed, I’m out.
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