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
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The App Store has had a problem with cold starts for a few years now. I remember a few years ago when I worked on App Store search it was a known problem when apps like Disney+ were released and users were searching directly for a new app immediately.
I love my iPhone but god damn does apple suck at a number of things. It’s 2023, and they have a terabyte of storage but they won’t store more than 100 numbers in your call history. Like what.
How about being able to edit a copied phone number? Like maybe I want to add a country code? No, the only way to do it is to make a new contact and then edit it? Ok…
Or how about search a pdf on my phone? Really? I can’t? Huh… so random…
My favourite is that giving in and clicking the “open in app” banners on Reddit etc just take me to the App Store page for Reddit, even though I have the actual app installed already.
Oh, I didn't mean to start an iPhone rant, but if we're going there...
* Let me put the icon where I want it. seriously. if my OCD wants this icon on bottom right of my screen, let me!
* Let me have an icon in multiple places. if my OCD wants this app in both "Media" and "Entertainment" folder, let me!
* Allow me to put stuff onto the phone. Via USB. Like every other god damn device in the world.
* Allow me to take stuff off my phone. Via USB. Like very other freakin' device in the world.
(my wife knows the exact shriek that comes out of my home office every ~6months when I try to take all my photos off my iPhone or put some videos onto it for travel. I've given up every time. My co-workers who love iPhone always have a wonderful system that sounds like "Email it to yourself then FTP it to your dropbox account and then download it in the browser and then..... - I assume that's how XKCD got the idea https://xkcd.com/763/)
* Downloading and opening files is an incredible hit and miss of what happens where and how.
* 3.5mm. And yes I blame Apple for starting the trend :)
I have a list somewhere I wrote down when people ask me why my phone is called "iHateApple". I'll see if I can dig it up :)
To #3, to users the benefit is absolutely nothing. There are still so many garbage apps.
To Apple, the benefit is enormous. What happens when garbage apps get better ranking? Companies pay for that sponsored position. Once they do, Apple then starts ranking them better and gets to claim they "monitor quality" when it was never about quality on the App Store.
15 years after introducing Apple Store it is still shit at finding apps, even though I am willing to pay. The search function is just a disaster. You need to use Google and the web to find anything.
My favorite is "Microsoft Authenticator" not being the first result when searching for it by name. I don't have an iPhone but I have to tell all my users to make sure the icon matches the registration page for O365's MFA registration.
Even in US, if you search for e.g. "GPT" instead of "ChatGPT", the top search results are all third party apps, and some of them seem like they deliberately copy the official website look and feel.
Are you outside the US? It seems to be region locked to US right now, so all of the third party frontend apps are all you see when searching from elsewhere.
The web version is very far from perfect on an iPhone.
It keeps logging me out, the copying UX is subpar… And god forbid I lock my phone while I'm getting a completion back. It stops mid sentence and there is no way to continue with it. Which (locking one's phone for a bit while interacting with it) is a very valid use case if you are doing stuff with your hands and want to put the phone in your pocket for a bit.
> ...the web version works perfectly fine on iPhone
I imagine this is their MVP, and they're going to iterate and start adding more iOS specific stuff. It'd be nice to be able to hook it into Siri natively (since we can't just rip out Siri and replace it with ChatGPT).
I had to open the link in my browser, then use the Safari tab sharing thing to open that same page on my phone, which then opened it in the store to the correct app, because I ran into the exact same problem.
> 1. Shows why an official app is needed even though the web version works perfectly fine on iPhone and is probably easier
Agreed that an official app is needed, clearly.
> 2. Doesn't actually seem to solve the problem
For now. Eventually it'll get sorted.
> 3. Puts to shame all the touted benefits of a "walled garden/closed ecosystem".
Despite having the same experience, I disagree with your conclusion.
It has nothing do with the "walled garden" and everything to do with Apple and OpenAI not paying attention to a rapidly emerging use case. The problem arose because OpenAI did not prioritize the initiative to make their own early enough, allowing hundreds of other developers to fill the void and muddy the waters, while Apple allowed these copycats into the App Store without really considering the customer experience.
We might yet find out whether we agree or disagree :), so let me be more narrow & specific:
* Apple is positioning their tight control over the appstore, including high fees to developers and restricted choice to consumers, as providing benefits of a curated & safe experience
* Do we feel that dozens of apps overlaying OpenAI ChatGPT, with various degrees of honesty and deception and monetization methods and privacy policies, are in-line with stated goals of the appstore, and with desires and best interests of the end-users?
My personal impression is "No". This is not to say I want the app store controlled more tightly - on the contrary; I am saying that I am not receiving benefits of the "walled garden / ecosystem" (and this is hardly the first example since iPhone was forced upon me by my employer:), i.e. I do not feel materially safer on AppleStore than I do on Google Play store; but I do feel materially obstructed/impacted when I want to install something that Apple for whatever reason does not.
Or in other words, without claiming anybody did anything particularly wrong here, if you're GOING to allow dozens of apps pretending to be the hottest new thing on the market on the app store, then just get out of my way and let me install what I want without pretense of curation and safety.
> while Apple allowed these copycats into the App Store without really considering the customer experience.
And what is Apple supposed to do in this case? Block independent devs from submitting valid apps? Then they’d be blamed for supporting big corp and monopolistic practices. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Canadian here can’t use it yet. Does it have access to preinstalled iOS apps like reminder? I use them daily with Siri which I really can’t be much fond of…
> 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
For people outside the US: use a second apple account with Region set to US.
I have used this many times for country specific public transport or delivery apps but same thing works here. You do not lose access to other apps, sync features or subscriptions.
Go into the App Store app, not your phone settings, click your profile and scroll all the way down to log out. Then log in with a US account, download the app and switch again.
You can continue using the US only apps after switching back
Or just open chat.openai.com in Safari and do a “Add to Homescreen”. Before the official app, I was using cgpt on my phone like that and it worked well.
Yes they work but you will be prompted to sign in with the account that bought the app by entering its password. Auto-updates sometimes work but only if you’ve entered the password for the account recently. Some work was done around iOS … 14 maybe? to try and improve this experience, but iOS is still not fully multi-account. And strange things sometimes happen to DRM content, in-app purchases and music libraries.
Unfortunately, the internet is getting more and more balkanized. What people see in one country is becoming completely different from what people see in another country, and often things are completely inaccessible between countries. Not to mention that even within countries it's becoming impossible to see the same things as someone else.
I thought this idiocy would end with the failure of DVD Regions (remember those?), a lesson would be learned and we would all move on.
But now I see this kind of crap from companies pretending to be at the forefront of technology and it has me not just frustrated, but worried.
Do people at OpenAI realize how much bad will this kind of segregation causes? Because make no mistake, this is segregation: you divide your users into "better" ones and "worse" ones.
They even made it unavailable in Europe full stop, except for the UK, where it was available from the start. Switzerland, Turkey, Norway etc. These countries don't even have GDPR, which is an EU law.
Your app won't save my API key. It accepts it, shows a checkmark, then the pop up just sits there with the checkmark. If I click elsewhere besides the pop-up, it goes away, but prefs say key missing, and popping that window again doesn't show checkmark.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
I haven't been able to reproduce it, but I'm investigating the issue.
I wrote you an email and would really appreciate your help.
I was excited to try this because I want to be able to use ChatGPT hands-free in certain circumstances. The ideal would be to put it into voice assistant mode, have it listen to me and then answer after a sufficient break in speech.
From what I can see, this app lags behind their web interface a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had some approval trouble at Apple and will be rolling out updates more frequently now that the official app is out the door. As it stands, the voice transcription feature returns an API error and it doesn't seem to have any option to read the response to you with text to speech.
I'm hopeful to see what updates they roll out in the coming weeks
Readit News
Case in point, the App Store release app subtitle is "The official app by OpenAI"
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?
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.
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.
Dead Comment
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.
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
They say in the post they'll roll it out to other countries in the coming weeks.
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Noted the name of the app ("Openai ChatGP") and the description ("The official app by OpenAI")
I opened App Store on my iPhone and typed the name of the app, verbatim.
The official/correct app was not in the first 20 entries (which is as far as I was willing to scroll).
Which, to me:
1. Shows why an official app is needed even though the web version works perfectly fine on iPhone and is probably easier
2. Doesn't actually seem to solve the problem
3. Puts to shame all the touted benefits of a "walled garden/closed ecosystem".
Or how about search a pdf on my phone? Really? I can’t? Huh… so random…
* Let me put the icon where I want it. seriously. if my OCD wants this icon on bottom right of my screen, let me!
* Let me have an icon in multiple places. if my OCD wants this app in both "Media" and "Entertainment" folder, let me!
* Allow me to put stuff onto the phone. Via USB. Like every other god damn device in the world.
* Allow me to take stuff off my phone. Via USB. Like very other freakin' device in the world.
(my wife knows the exact shriek that comes out of my home office every ~6months when I try to take all my photos off my iPhone or put some videos onto it for travel. I've given up every time. My co-workers who love iPhone always have a wonderful system that sounds like "Email it to yourself then FTP it to your dropbox account and then download it in the browser and then..... - I assume that's how XKCD got the idea https://xkcd.com/763/)
* Downloading and opening files is an incredible hit and miss of what happens where and how.
* 3.5mm. And yes I blame Apple for starting the trend :)
I have a list somewhere I wrote down when people ask me why my phone is called "iHateApple". I'll see if I can dig it up :)
To Apple, the benefit is enormous. What happens when garbage apps get better ranking? Companies pay for that sponsored position. Once they do, Apple then starts ranking them better and gets to claim they "monitor quality" when it was never about quality on the App Store.
Not that HN wants to admit it when gpt4all gpt4free etc comes up
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It keeps logging me out, the copying UX is subpar… And god forbid I lock my phone while I'm getting a completion back. It stops mid sentence and there is no way to continue with it. Which (locking one's phone for a bit while interacting with it) is a very valid use case if you are doing stuff with your hands and want to put the phone in your pocket for a bit.
I'm looking forward to the app.
I imagine this is their MVP, and they're going to iterate and start adding more iOS specific stuff. It'd be nice to be able to hook it into Siri natively (since we can't just rip out Siri and replace it with ChatGPT).
Apple store search is a broken horrific joke.
Agreed that an official app is needed, clearly.
> 2. Doesn't actually seem to solve the problem
For now. Eventually it'll get sorted.
> 3. Puts to shame all the touted benefits of a "walled garden/closed ecosystem".
Despite having the same experience, I disagree with your conclusion.
It has nothing do with the "walled garden" and everything to do with Apple and OpenAI not paying attention to a rapidly emerging use case. The problem arose because OpenAI did not prioritize the initiative to make their own early enough, allowing hundreds of other developers to fill the void and muddy the waters, while Apple allowed these copycats into the App Store without really considering the customer experience.
* Apple is positioning their tight control over the appstore, including high fees to developers and restricted choice to consumers, as providing benefits of a curated & safe experience
* Do we feel that dozens of apps overlaying OpenAI ChatGPT, with various degrees of honesty and deception and monetization methods and privacy policies, are in-line with stated goals of the appstore, and with desires and best interests of the end-users?
My personal impression is "No". This is not to say I want the app store controlled more tightly - on the contrary; I am saying that I am not receiving benefits of the "walled garden / ecosystem" (and this is hardly the first example since iPhone was forced upon me by my employer:), i.e. I do not feel materially safer on AppleStore than I do on Google Play store; but I do feel materially obstructed/impacted when I want to install something that Apple for whatever reason does not.
Or in other words, without claiming anybody did anything particularly wrong here, if you're GOING to allow dozens of apps pretending to be the hottest new thing on the market on the app store, then just get out of my way and let me install what I want without pretense of curation and safety.
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And what is Apple supposed to do in this case? Block independent devs from submitting valid apps? Then they’d be blamed for supporting big corp and monopolistic practices. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
It’s the right call to make.
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.
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I have used this many times for country specific public transport or delivery apps but same thing works here. You do not lose access to other apps, sync features or subscriptions.
Go into the App Store app, not your phone settings, click your profile and scroll all the way down to log out. Then log in with a US account, download the app and switch again.
You can continue using the US only apps after switching back
Works fine for me though. I have barely any apps that need updating
Seriously?
When is this idiotic corporate idea going to die? Internet has no regions.
(BTW, I pay for ChatGPT plus)
But now I see this kind of crap from companies pretending to be at the forefront of technology and it has me not just frustrated, but worried.
Do people at OpenAI realize how much bad will this kind of segregation causes? Because make no mistake, this is segregation: you divide your users into "better" ones and "worse" ones.
"We take reports of fraudulent behavior very seriously. Please provide the following so we can investigate the situation:
Steps to reproduce the behavior: Screenshots of the behavior on the iTunes Store or App Store: Names and links to the Apps:
After we receive this information, our team will investigate your concern."
Am I supposed to provide unpaid work for a $2 trillion company?
Also, worth mentioning the "tracking" of the "official" app:
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity: Contact Info Identifiers Diagnostics User Content Usage Data
Thanks, but no thanks!
Disclosure: I developed an iOS app that uses the OpenAI API, but somehow managed to not include any tracking.
AKME is free and doesn't include any tracking. The app supports a BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) model, as well as buying in-app tokens https://apps.apple.com/app/akme-ai-knowledge/id6446436196
Just because OpenAI didn't make an app first doesn't mean they're the only ones that can create apps for interfacing with GPT networks.
Yes, there are multiple scam apps
Define scam
From what I can see, this app lags behind their web interface a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had some approval trouble at Apple and will be rolling out updates more frequently now that the official app is out the door. As it stands, the voice transcription feature returns an API error and it doesn't seem to have any option to read the response to you with text to speech.
I'm hopeful to see what updates they roll out in the coming weeks
Edit: I am using this one https://github.com/Yue-Yang/ChatGPT-Siri
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