ChatGPT comes to iPhone with Perplexity, offering its own AI assistant on iOS

(Image credit: iMore)

Another ChatGPT app has arrived for your iPhone, enabling you to ask the AI questions and suggestions in an instant.

Available on the App Store as a free download, Perplexity displays suggested queries that you can view, while typing in or speaking your own. The results were quick, although the formatting made it hard to read, especially when asking the app how to make chocolate pancakes.

We've already seen a bunch of similar apps arrive on the Mac and Apple Watch, but this is one of the first apps for iOS that you can use without enabling a Siri Shortcut.

The AI apps have arrived to the App Store

Announcing Perplexity AI’s iPhone app and series A funding! Perplexity provides instant answers and cited sources on any topic, now available on iPhone. With follow-up questions, voice search, and thread history, learn and explore faster than ever before.📱https://t.co/qvWT8Zrcek pic.twitter.com/ZsVupfpK1KMarch 28, 2023

You could argue that ChatGPT is now accessible on every Apple product currently available, with the company staying relatively silent on the category.

From the HomePod thanks to the Siri Shortcut, to MacGPT on a Mac, Petey on Apple Watch, and now Perplexity on an iPhone, it's suddenly straightforward to access ChatGPT on your devices.

The AI is either a tap, a voice, or a click away now, easily replacing Siri for most queries, apart from running shortcuts and opening apps. Perplexity does it well, thanks to its elegant design and great choice of font - it would be great to see it appear on iPadOS next, or even as a widget to launch from the home screen or lock screen.

With WWDC 2023 on the horizon, it could be to Apple's benefit if they acknowledge these apps in the keynote - perhaps with an API to help developers integrate ChatGPT into their apps, or how Siri is going to somehow get engaged to OpenAI, and there's going to be a brand new virtual assistant from the company in the near future.

However, if you've not tried out ChatGPT as yet, Perplexity could be a great start in seeing how it responds to your questions, and whether it could help you in certain situations.

Daryl is iMore's Features Editor, overseeing long-form and in-depth articles and op-eds. Daryl loves using his experience as both a journalist and Apple fan to tell stories about Apple's products and its community, from the apps we use every day to the products that have been long forgotten in the Cupertino archives.

Previously Software & Downloads Writer at TechRadar, and Deputy Editor at StealthOptional, he's also written a book, 'The Making of Tomb Raider', which tells the story of the beginnings of Lara Croft and the series' early development. His second book, '50 Years of Boss Fights', came out in June 2024, and has a monthly newsletter called 'Springboard'. He's also written for many other publications including WIRED, MacFormat, Bloody Disgusting, VGC, GamesRadar, Nintendo Life, VRV Blog, The Loop Magazine, SUPER JUMP, Gizmodo, Film Stories, TopTenReviews, Miketendo64, and Daily Star.