Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT app is free for iPhone and iPad

Screenshots of OpenAI's ChatGPT app for iOS.
OpenAI

OpenAI has just launched a free ChatGPT app for iOS, giving iPhone and iPad owners an easy way to take the AI-powered tool for a spin.

The new app, which is able to converse in a remarkably human-like way, is available now in the U.S. App Store and will come to additional countries “in the coming weeks,” OpenAI said. Android users are promised their own ChatGPT app “soon.”

In a post on its website introducing the ad-free ChatGPT mobile app for iPhone, OpenAI outlined some of the tasks that you might want to use it for. They include:

Instant answers: Get precise information without sifting through ads or multiple results.
— Tailored advice: Seek guidance on cooking, travel plans, or crafting thoughtful messages.
— Creative inspiration: Generate gift ideas, outline presentations, or write the perfect poem.
— Professional input: Boost productivity with idea feedback, note summarization, and technical topic assistance.
— Learning opportunities: Explore new languages, modern history, and more at your own pace.

The ChatGPT app also integrates Whisper, OpenAI’s open-source speech-recognition system for voice input. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will get early access to new features, faster response times in the app, and exclusive access to GPT-4 — a model more advanced than GPT-3.5, which powers ChatGPT.

“With the ChatGPT app for iOS, we’re taking another step towards our mission by transforming state-of-the-art research into useful tools that empower people, while continuously making them more accessible,” OpenAI said.

It could be that with Apple’s Siri digital assistant lacking the same kind of impressive AI smarts displayed by ChatGPT, some iPhone users will find themselves conversing more with OpenAI’s offering for virtual chats and inquiries.

Following its release in November, ChatGPT quickly went viral, with its success turbocharging AI development by other tech giants such as Google and Meta, though numerous startups are also entering the sector.

It’s also stirred heated debate about the extent to which similarly powerful generative AI technology will go on to impact industries and wider society, complementing jobs while replacing many others. Some AI experts, including the so-called “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, have said that while the technology offers many potential benefits, urgent regulation is needed to reduce the chances of it being used for nefarious purposes. Hinton even expressed fears that the technology could one day become too powerful and destroy humanity itself. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, also warned recently that we may not be that far from “potentially scary” AI and said that regulating it is “critical.”

In a bid to keep up with the fast-evolving technology, lawmakers in the U.S. and beyond are currently looking at how to regulate the technology.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
The world responds to the creator of ChatGPT being fired by his own company
Sam Altman at the OpenAI developer conference.

The company behind ChatGPT and GPT-4 has dropped its CEO and co-founder, Sam Altman. According to a blog post from OpenAI: "Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

Those sound like some serious allegations, despite being intentionally vague. The timing of a later afternoon blog post on Friday make the announcement even more eyebrow-raising. There's been plenty of speculation about the reason behind the sudden departure, but nothing clear has risen to the surface just yet.

Read more
4 AI features I want in my next iPhone
Blue Titanium (left) and Natural Titanium iPhone 15 Pros on a concrete bench.

Believe it or not, Apple didn’t always have Siri. Siri originally belonged to SRI International, which created Siri, Inc. in 2007. Then in April 2010, Apple acquired Siri, which became a key component of the iPhone 4S that launched in 2011.

Ever since then, Siri has continued to evolve at Apple, for better or for worse. While the point of Siri is to make your life easier with hands-free use of your iPhone or Apple Watch, it’s far from perfect. Siri often misunderstands you and results in hilarious requests, or is just incapable of doing what you need it to do, sometimes because of a poor connection.

Read more
GPT-4 Turbo is the biggest update since ChatGPT’s launch
A person typing on a laptop that is showing the ChatGPT generative AI website.

OpenAI has just unveiled the latest updates to its large language models (LLM) during its first developer conference, and the most notable improvement is the release of GPT-4 Turbo, which is currently entering preview. GPT-4 Turbo comes as an update to the existing GPT-4, bringing with it a greatly increased context window and access to much newer knowledge. Here's everything you need to know about GPT-4 Turbo.

OpenAI claims that the AI model will be more powerful while simultaneously being cheaper than its predecessors. Unlike the previous versions, it's been trained on information dating to April 2023. That's a hefty update on its own -- the latest version maxed out in September 2021. I just tested this myself, and indeed, using GPT-4 allows ChatGPT to draw information from events that happened up until April 2023, so that update is already live.

Read more