ChatGPT has gone mobile with a new free app available to iPhone and iPad users.
OpenAI, the company behind the artificial intelligence chatbot, has taken its web-based AI platform to Apple users beyond their web browsers. With the app, there are more features and more ways to utilize the technology of 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 wrote in a statement.
Voice-to-text and device syncing
Two of the new features available with the ChatGPT mobile app include device syncing and voice-to-text capabilities. This means that searches started on one device will be saved and able to pick up on other devices, and users’ search history will also be stored along all devices.
There will also be voice-to-text capabilities with the app. While users can still manually type in their questions or requests into the ChatBot, the app version utilizes OpenAI’s Whisper technology – “an automatic speech recognition system trained on 680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised data collected from the web” – that allows users to also speak directly into the search bar.
Additionally, those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus will get all of the same benefits from their subscription – including faster response times and safer responses – on the iOS app, the company says.
OpenAI says that Android users, and Apple users outside of the U.S., can expect to see the ChatGPT app in the coming weeks.
Beware of fleeceware scams
OpenAI’s announcement of its free ChatGPT app comes on the heels of a fleeceware scam that was recently detected by experts from Sophos News.
Prior to OpenAI’s official app, scammers were creating apps with similar capabilities that were free to download, but that also came with unsuspecting subscriptions. After users would download the apps, the capabilities would be restricted until they agreed to pay for a subscription.
Some of these subscriptions run as high as $69.99 per month, and many consumers forget to cancel them, racking up months of charges for an app that doesn’t follow through on what it promised, and that they oftentimes have stopped using. And that money goes right into the pockets of the scammers.
The report highlighted that both Android and Apple users are at risk, as these fake apps have popped up in both the Google Play store and the Apple App Store.