OpenAI released its official ChatGPT iOS app this week, providing a much simpler way for iPhone and iPad users to interact with the popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT. By downloading the free app, users have the ability to ask the chatbot various questions and get an answer as expected – but with a limitation. ChatGPT does not currently access current, real-time information, meaning it miss out on current events and topics that happened in the past few years. This restriction is a known limitation of ChatGPT since its inception, yet with other iPhone chatbot apps now offering this service for free, it does not create a good first impression.
Things such as real-time internet access and citing sources are missing from the ChatGPT iPhone app, however third-party iPhone ChatGPT apps like Perplexity AI do provide these features. The answers given by Perplexity AI are more visually-appealing and easier to digest than ChatGPT’s answer, making it the more preferred option for many users.
For those loyal to and familiar with ChatGPT, the official iPhone app is the best way to use it on an iPhone and iPad. Users who are looking for internet access and more features must look elsewhere, such as Bing Chat, Google Bard or other third-party iPhone ChatGPT apps. Ultimately, with the array of different apps available, users are able to talk to a chatbot that offers the features & content that they need and prefer.
