For about three years, most programming applications were clones of VS Code with a side chat. A new wave seems to have been started by Codex — they released their desktop app on Electron without VSC, as did OpenCode.

Cursor 3
https://cursor.com/blog/cursor-3
The company has completely abandoned the VS Code fork model and built a new interface code-named Glass. The main innovation is the ground-up Agents Window, which allows running an unlimited number of agents simultaneously in parallel: locally, in worktree, via SSH, in the cloud, or even across multiple repositories at once. The new part is reportedly written in Rust+TS.

https://cursor.com/blog/agent-web
Later, they integrated mobile devices via PWA. Cursor Agents on web and mobile is an official way to run cloud agents directly from a phone or mobile browser. You can start a chat on your phone and continue on your desktop (or vice versa).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTKGyLar8AU

The phrase "Cursor 3 just killed the IDE" is repeated as the main hook.

Discussion
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618084
Many praise the boldness and technical progress of an agentic future, but even more express disappointment or even outrage that Cursor is radically moving away from the familiar "IDE + plugins + AI assistant" model. Critics argue the company is chasing investor hype that "AI will replace developers" rather than addressing programmers' real needs.

People who want to write code rather than manage a team of agents will have to look for something else, like VS Code or Zed.

App from The Factory
https://factory.ai/news/factory-desktop
Another company made a similar interface clone for "agent management." Interestingly, after installing on Windows 11, it tells me "Not connected to Local Machine. Please download and start the Desktop app, or upgrade to a paid plan to unlock more features," asking me to download their app. While their design is very cool, I couldn't even test their buggy Electron app.

#cursor #factory