Yeah. I saw this announcement, and searched both "chatgpt" and "open ai" (sic, as auto-suggested) in the App Store and gave up scrolling looking for it. The unofficial app logos look waaaay closer to the ChatGPT logo than the official white logo does, and the SEO (ASO?) seems poor. Not sure what either party can do about it though, but it's a disappointing situation.
Yea, AppStore search is terrible. I often revert to my webbrowser/search engine to search for AppStore apps, because i can't find them in the AppStore.
I mostly agree, but the average person doesn't know that's even an option. They hear "You should use ChatGPT!" and they go straight to the app store to try it out.
That's probably a good thing. When non-technical users go looking for free apps outside of any official app store, the chances of installing malware go way up.
I think most of the OpenAI's target audience must be technical enough to know they can access websites on a smartphone and bookmark them in some way.
They probably just want to fight abuse/spam/fraud/scams that are on the App Store/Play store so that it would stop devaluing their brand. "ChatGPT charged my card $299 without permission, I am going to the press!" is a disaster waiting to happen with these scammy apps.
Really? So many people tell me how great ChatGPT is at helping development and developers are pretty much by definition technical people.
Also, the signup process is far from easy. People here often cry about how "difficult" it is to sign up for Mastodon or Matrix etc and that is why the mainstream don't use it. Yet this is the same :)
YES. It's extremely clear and easy, in multiple ways, both through the ChatGPT app and through the Subscriptions Tab in settings in iOS. This is one of those things that Apple does reasonable well, compared to some vendors.
I'm not answering your question, but I just tried voice input on the ChatGPT iOS app. They integrate their whisper model to directly do speech recognition, and it is always broken for me, with "There was an unexpected error (API.API.APIError, 0)" on any input. Of course, I can also just type the mic and use the normal iOS text-to-speech in the input box, and that works fine.
On Android, an app can replace the voice assistant, which a PWA cannot do. I agree that there doesn't seem to be any user benefit of a ChatGPT app on iOS.
Does the PWA also log you out every few days like the regular website? That really annoys me so much. Every few days I type a question in the GPT tab I always have open, it realises I was kicked out and shows me the login screen. After logging in my question is gone and I have to type it again. Grrr..
Honestly it would be great if PWAs worked better. It feels like it has been a half implemented solution. Not all features of Safari work inside a PWA, and it's unclear if you can now get push notifications. Having some access to device level features like you get with native through custom JS APIs would also be a huge win.
My understanding is that this might have been what Apple originally planned to do. However, the popularity of the App Store, IAP revenue, and the focus on services disincentivized them from pushing this route further.
I don’t recall ever hearing Apple PR calling iOS a “walled garden”. Outside of tech I doubt most people would understand what that means. The operative word is “curated”.
It's suggesting that "the prevalence of 'fake' ChatGPT apps on the App Store" undermines reasons Apple has used to defend everything having to be installed through the App Store & Apple's app review process (e.g. lack of side loading, or taking such a high percentage out of app-related purchases).
I’m not a 100% fan of having a single app store, but if those apps are ‘fake’ in quotes they aren’t really fake, ‘just’ confusingly named, are they?
If so, on what grounds could Apple deny them from being on the App Store?
Given the enormous amount of apps using trademarked names in their name or description, I also guess trademark owners cannot request Apple to remove those apps.
What Apple IMO should improve, though, is its search functionality.
For example, when I search for “company nameproduct name” (examples: “Microsoft Excel”, “Apple Numbers”, “Google Maps”), the top hits should be “Microsoft Excel”, “Numbers”, respectively “Google Maps - Transit & Food” (what marketeer came up with that name? To me, that signals “not the real Google Maps”)
There's nothing "fake" about those apps at least upon surface level investigation: OpenAI sold access to the ChatGPT and GPT-4 API, so opportunistic people made chat apps "powered by" ChatGPT and GPT-4. They would be "fake" if they claim to be made by OpenAI, which they don't.
So, on what ground do you suggest they should be blocked from submission? Slapping a custom UI on a third party API is fine, if a bit distasteful in certain situations. Tons of people on this very forum work on glorified wrappers.
> They would be "fake" if they claim to be made by OpenAI, which they don't.
Very many did that or implied an association with OpenAI, which is why OpenAI had to release updated branding guidelines (https://openai.com/brand) and started enforcing takedowns against apps/domains using GPT in their name.
This is pretty typical for the App Store / Play Store and isn’t anything particular to OpenAI. If there is a third-party service Foo that app Bar uses, then “Foo Bar” is questionable for trademark reasons and the common practice is to use “Bar for Foo” instead.
> So, on what ground do you suggest they should be blocked from submission? Slapping a custom UI on a third party API is fine, if a bit distasteful in certain situations.
I recall about a month of Show HN being largely populated by this same soft of thing. I'm definitely not arguing with misrepresentation of an official OpenAI app but there's a lot of this happening inside and outside the app store.
It's walled garden enough in that any developer that try to present their app to be associated with OpenAI or as an official app get their app rejected.
Interesting, yes, that make sense, there should be resellers. It is not clear how much of that money ended up going to Apple and paying for the OpenAI API access.
Is Apple going to get their cut from the paying customers of OpenAI, by the way?
No, you can apply for the 15% fee, a.k.a. the App Store Small Business Program, right from the start.
> If your proceeds surpass the 1 million USD threshold in the current calendar year, you will no longer be eligible for the program and the standard commission rate will apply to your future sales.
Source: I did it myself two months ago, no problem.
Why would they do something special? This already exists. Apple is fine with it as long as they don’t solicit payment in the app / direct users outside the app.
You must be able to start the subscription from inside the app:
3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services: Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired in your app on other platforms or your web site, including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app.
They do what? They do not need to. But they ARE, because they want to. You and the other simply misunderstand that Apple rule because it's written strangely. Do YOU have first hand experience with this rule? Go do your research.
Feel free to clarify what the rule means. I publish multiple apps per week and have encountered this rule enough times in exactly the way I mentioned it.
If you actually check, they do offer subscriptions in the app. I just downloaded it and checked it out myself. Click the … icon, then Settings, then “Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus”. It’s the same price point as if you buy directly from OpenAI, but Apple gets 15% or 30%.
Why not? Isn't that the business model of OpenAI? Provide access to the APIs for wrappers that are not their own products - simple as they may. Bradgpt comes to mind
Where are you getting this data from? How would any one site know the revenue numbers of multiple competing apps like that, with any degree of confidence?
this is analytics service like appannie (data.ai), sensor tower etc. they plug into apps analytics and collect data for a lot of apps, extrapolating the collected data on all other apps. usually both revenue numbers and downloads are pretty spot on
My guess is OpenAI now has a case to ask Apple to remove these apps for trademark infringement and brand confusion. Obviously they can just rename themselves but keep the same functionality, but marketing themselves as ChatGPT is no longer going to fly.
> This official app is free (no ads!), syncs your history across devices, and brings you the newest model improvements from OpenAI.
It now looks like the short term ChatGPT copycat grifter apps on the App Store are now going to start packing their bags now. If they don't, Apple will do it for them.
Expect this one to take over the app store and remain the top 10 apps for a very long time.
Poe offers a comparatively smaller quantity of GPT-4 responses in comparison to a subscription to OpenAI's ChatGPT. The limitations of Poe result in a maximum allowance of 1090 responses per month, calculated by combining 3 response per day each with an additional 1000 responses. Conversely, an OpenAI ChatGPT subscription provides approximately 2250 responses. This estimation assumes the utilization of 75 GPT-4 responses per day, divided into three separate sessions of 25 responses each. It is possible to attain additional responses by initiating inquiries beyond the nine-hour window in the prior calculation.
Poe necessitates a yearly commitment. As a consequence, if the costs of GPT-4 decrease significantly or a more advanced model becomes available, there is a potential risk of paying for Poe and not using it. Poe does offer access to Claude base model and limited access to the more advanced Claude models.
Wow, just tried to search organically and there are an awful lot of existing apps already spun up to give you access to ChatGPT. I wonder if Apple will help them be prioritized in the rankings or if they'll be pushed into spending ad dollars to appear at the top of the search.
It's been out for less than 24 hours so I don't think Apple's App Store search index has had time to update the rankings. Give it a few days and I'll bet it becomes the number 1 result.
A brand-new project in Xcode doesn't require iOS 16. You actually have to make use of OS features only available in 16+ to get your app limited like this. And beside, 5-year old iPhones support iOS 16; it's not too unreasonable to make use of these features.
> How does anyone (outside HN perhaps) have any hope of finding the official one?
Easy. Out of all the ChatGPT wrapper clones on the App Store, Apple will promote OpenAI's app first, and remove the fakes if they wanted to. Only a selected few 'approved' competitor AI chatbot apps on the App Store will be still around.
This just shows that almost none of these AI chatbot apps have a moat and can be easily wiped out with a push of a red button, even if they are using the GPT-4 API.
There is a famous app for cars on Android called Torque. I accidentally told an average apple user to download it to head his OBD2 codes.
4 fake app downloads later he gave up and said "this is why I stick to apple apps"
Lol what
NOT loving the excessive vibrations on the phone. It increases my anxiety somehow... I'd remove it honestly or make it 10% of what it is in certain cases only.
I might be alone in this, but we've been trained for vibrations to mean something. Vibrating the phone on every line or response from ChatGPT seems excessive to me (and a battery drain as well!).
ChatGDPR: Thank you for your question. However, as a GDPR compliant chat bot, I must inform you that tracking user data for targeted advertising purposes requires collecting personal information and may infringe upon user privacy rights. I cannot provide guidance on implementing such functionality without explicit user consent.
(Disclaimer, I’m using gpt 3.5 or whatever is publicly available.)
This week I used ChatGPT to help “diagnose” a medical issue my senior dog has developed with his eye. We noticed he very suddenly started walking into furniture, and his left eye has become sunken and half covered by his third eyelid. Our small town’s farm vet wasn’t equipped to deal with eye issues, and the second vet we saw was understaffed so they had a traveling vet in for the day look at our dog. We weren’t impressed after he couldn’t figure out how to work his eye examination tool (he was looking through it backwards at first, shining the light into his own eye) and then gave up and just prescribed an antibiotic/ointment to our dog and told us to come back in a week.
Obviously we’ve tried to google the symptoms, but I’d heard anecdotes of people feeding their own medical issues into ChatGPT and getting good feedback, so I figured I’d do the same with my dog. It gave me a ton of detailed data about five different things that could be causing the problem with his eye. I questioned it about each one, and it tried to rule out some of the causes to the best of its ability when I was able to fill in details about things it asked. All the while it cautioned me that a vet would need to test him to truly determine if one of these things were the problem.
We’re heading back to the vet tomorrow for his recheck, ready to ask about a couple of these things. I’ve been very bearish on ChatGPT and LLMs, but it’s been genuinely useful to me in this situation.
I’m still a little cautious about the info it gave me though, because I’m still thinking about all the times I’ve played with it and had it give me broken lua/f# code or kusto queries that call functions which simply don’t exist. This could easily be one of those situations where I’m not a veterinarian so I can’t easily spot any of the wrong or misinformed information it gave me.
Edit: the five conditions it listed that could have caused the sudden eye problem for my dog are entropion; ectropion; enophthalmos; glaucoma; trauma.
I've tried GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 since it's release. GPT-4 is such a fantastic improvement in terms of getting the facts right that I can't remember when was the last time it had misremembered things.
And just a couple of days ago they released the version with web search, and now I always ask it to search for information instead of trying to remember it, or at least to search to confirm that it remembers things right.
Sadly, search seems pretty unstable for now. But it's still a completely unique, once in a lifetime technology. I can't compare it to anything less than internet in terms of potential impact.
Same. I described my dizziness and pointed me to BPPV and 4 others that were quickly filtered out. I also asked how to further diagnose the issue and pointed me to some maneuvers. I then searched them on YouTube and I was fine 3 days later (this stuff can stick around for months)
Diagnosis is probably going to be one of the most impactful uses. Even if then you have to head to an actual doctor to confirm, it's good to have a possible lead.
We've been using Google for the same purpose for a decade but with much worse results, this is a step up.
One problem I have with their website is that it constantly signs me out. It’s why I ended up downloading an app (GeePeeTee had the best privacy policy I could find) to use their service personally.
Don't get me wrong, I'm someone who prefers a browser over apps as well. I'll have to give their website a try again, maybe it's not an issue any longer.
423 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 285 ms ] threadCase in point, the App Store release app subtitle is "The official app by OpenAI"
Update:
“We're starting our rollout in the US and will expand to additional countries in the coming weeks”
source: I used to do tech support for my family
They probably just want to fight abuse/spam/fraud/scams that are on the App Store/Play store so that it would stop devaluing their brand. "ChatGPT charged my card $299 without permission, I am going to the press!" is a disaster waiting to happen with these scammy apps.
It is different from developers who are using the ChatGPT API to build apps.
Also, the signup process is far from easy. People here often cry about how "difficult" it is to sign up for Mastodon or Matrix etc and that is why the mainstream don't use it. Yet this is the same :)
That said, it's possible to package progressive web apps (PWAs) for listing in app stores: PWABuilder[0].
Disclaimer: I've worked on PWABuilder.
[0]: https://www.pwabuilder.com
My understanding is that this might have been what Apple originally planned to do. However, the popularity of the App Store, IAP revenue, and the focus on services disincentivized them from pushing this route further.
But its for our security to have a closed ecosyste---Walled Garden. Woah there, almost didn't stick to the marketing that we were all taught.
If so, on what grounds could Apple deny them from being on the App Store?
Given the enormous amount of apps using trademarked names in their name or description, I also guess trademark owners cannot request Apple to remove those apps.
What Apple IMO should improve, though, is its search functionality.
For example, when I search for “company name product name” (examples: “Microsoft Excel”, “Apple Numbers”, “Google Maps”), the top hits should be “Microsoft Excel”, “Numbers”, respectively “Google Maps - Transit & Food” (what marketeer came up with that name? To me, that signals “not the real Google Maps”)
So, on what ground do you suggest they should be blocked from submission? Slapping a custom UI on a third party API is fine, if a bit distasteful in certain situations. Tons of people on this very forum work on glorified wrappers.
Very many did that or implied an association with OpenAI, which is why OpenAI had to release updated branding guidelines (https://openai.com/brand) and started enforcing takedowns against apps/domains using GPT in their name.
I recall about a month of Show HN being largely populated by this same soft of thing. I'm definitely not arguing with misrepresentation of an official OpenAI app but there's a lot of this happening inside and outside the app store.
You just referred to these things as ‘chat apps’.
And that seems reasonable - they use a chat interface.
But they aren’t ‘chat apps’ as we would have understood them a few months ago. They don’t let you chat with people. They let you chat with an LLM.
Is the word ‘chat’ changing its meaning?
Judging by the number of recently-launched apps that invite the user to "chat with PDFs" or "chat with documents", it would appear so.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/fake-chatgpt-apps-raking-tho...
The Chart: https://i.imgur.com/IYC0Pcb.png
Is Apple going to get their cut from the paying customers of OpenAI, by the way?
15%. The only companies that pay 30% are the ones earning over a million dollars a year from things other than long-term subscriptions.
> If your proceeds surpass the 1 million USD threshold in the current calendar year, you will no longer be eligible for the program and the standard commission rate will apply to your future sales.
Source: I did it myself two months ago, no problem.
No plugins right now in the App, but they’ll be coming, no?
3.1.3(b) Multiplatform Services: Apps that operate across multiple platforms may allow users to access content, subscriptions, or features they have acquired in your app on other platforms or your web site, including consumable items in multi-platform games, provided those items are also available as in-app purchases within the app.
Where are you getting this data from? How would any one site know the revenue numbers of multiple competing apps like that, with any degree of confidence?
this is analytics service like appannie (data.ai), sensor tower etc. they plug into apps analytics and collect data for a lot of apps, extrapolating the collected data on all other apps. usually both revenue numbers and downloads are pretty spot on
They say in the post they'll roll it out to other countries in the coming weeks.
That said, I also find it somewhat unfair, as likely does anyone not in the US :)
It now looks like the short term ChatGPT copycat grifter apps on the App Store are now going to start packing their bags now. If they don't, Apple will do it for them.
Expect this one to take over the app store and remain the top 10 apps for a very long time.
Poe necessitates a yearly commitment. As a consequence, if the costs of GPT-4 decrease significantly or a more advanced model becomes available, there is a potential risk of paying for Poe and not using it. Poe does offer access to Claude base model and limited access to the more advanced Claude models.
Pure laziness.
It just further weakens Apple’s arguments for their locked down store and app review process.
How does anyone (outside HN perhaps) have any hope of finding the official one?
And what are we (Apple users) paying our “Apple tax” for when the app store quality control processes have sunk so low?
Lack of competition. If Android counts as competition then switch to Android.
Easy. Out of all the ChatGPT wrapper clones on the App Store, Apple will promote OpenAI's app first, and remove the fakes if they wanted to. Only a selected few 'approved' competitor AI chatbot apps on the App Store will be still around.
This just shows that almost none of these AI chatbot apps have a moat and can be easily wiped out with a push of a red button, even if they are using the GPT-4 API.
I might be alone in this, but we've been trained for vibrations to mean something. Vibrating the phone on every line or response from ChatGPT seems excessive to me (and a battery drain as well!).
Everything else has “Sounds” as off which turns off vibrations as well.
I turned off haptics immediately in settings, but most people will be complaining before they figure that out.
It is annoying enough the way that ChatGPT drips out results, but now it acts as a low-quality hand massager and battery drain too?
Not ideal, but the product is still very good and people will happily use it, regardless of these "extra features"
* Find new artists to listen that combine techno with psytrance
* Navigate a tricky personal communication situation
* Debug a LOT of different issues
* Write new code in a language I'm not really familiar with
* Explore political ideas through simulated debate
* Search current visa requirements
* Find answers to some random history questions
* Calculate whether my tent would be blown of a mountain cliff or not
* Adjust a recipe to my taste, amount of servings and available ingridients
* Name some very abstract variables
* Remember a name of historical figure
Sure, I could do most of these just with Google, but it would take me a lot more time. Sometimes 2, sometimes 10 times more.
Can't wait when this app will be available in my region.
Curious what you mean by this?
This week I used ChatGPT to help “diagnose” a medical issue my senior dog has developed with his eye. We noticed he very suddenly started walking into furniture, and his left eye has become sunken and half covered by his third eyelid. Our small town’s farm vet wasn’t equipped to deal with eye issues, and the second vet we saw was understaffed so they had a traveling vet in for the day look at our dog. We weren’t impressed after he couldn’t figure out how to work his eye examination tool (he was looking through it backwards at first, shining the light into his own eye) and then gave up and just prescribed an antibiotic/ointment to our dog and told us to come back in a week.
Obviously we’ve tried to google the symptoms, but I’d heard anecdotes of people feeding their own medical issues into ChatGPT and getting good feedback, so I figured I’d do the same with my dog. It gave me a ton of detailed data about five different things that could be causing the problem with his eye. I questioned it about each one, and it tried to rule out some of the causes to the best of its ability when I was able to fill in details about things it asked. All the while it cautioned me that a vet would need to test him to truly determine if one of these things were the problem.
We’re heading back to the vet tomorrow for his recheck, ready to ask about a couple of these things. I’ve been very bearish on ChatGPT and LLMs, but it’s been genuinely useful to me in this situation.
I’m still a little cautious about the info it gave me though, because I’m still thinking about all the times I’ve played with it and had it give me broken lua/f# code or kusto queries that call functions which simply don’t exist. This could easily be one of those situations where I’m not a veterinarian so I can’t easily spot any of the wrong or misinformed information it gave me.
Edit: the five conditions it listed that could have caused the sudden eye problem for my dog are entropion; ectropion; enophthalmos; glaucoma; trauma.
And just a couple of days ago they released the version with web search, and now I always ask it to search for information instead of trying to remember it, or at least to search to confirm that it remembers things right.
Sadly, search seems pretty unstable for now. But it's still a completely unique, once in a lifetime technology. I can't compare it to anything less than internet in terms of potential impact.
Diagnosis is probably going to be one of the most impactful uses. Even if then you have to head to an actual doctor to confirm, it's good to have a possible lead.
We've been using Google for the same purpose for a decade but with much worse results, this is a step up.
Normalize people using the web. And FirefoxAndroid... don't refresh an idle tab unless I tell you to!
I think that happened to me a while back, but I haven't had a problem with it in weeks.
Edit: Oh ok you mean the app, I thought you meant ChatGPT in general because Italy banned it for a bit.
I think it will come soon, when I had an app in the store and I added a country it also didn't appear straight away.