X (formerly Twitter) today released a standalone Grok app in the App Store for iPhone owners to interact with its artificially intelligent chatbot more easily.
Grok is available to download from the App Store in the United States, Australia and India. The company has been testing the app in Australia and New Zealand since December, but there’s no word yet when it might expand to more countries.
Grok doesn’t require an X account, removing a potentially significant barrier to use. As a signed-in user, however, you can access additional functionality such as your history and direct posting to X. To that end, Grok supports signing in with your X, Apple or Google account, in addition to email-based login.
If you prefer Open’s ChatGPT and your iPhone, iPad, or Mac meets the system requirements for Apple Intelligence, you can tap into ChatGPT from Siri and use OpenAI’s large language models in the systemwide writing tools to create new text from scratch. Don’t forget that Apple Intelligence brings many other features, including AI-powered image creation tools called Genmoji and Image Wand.
Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot gets a native iPhone app
Aside from its conversational tone, Grok can access current X data and web information in real time to provide useful, up-to-date answers. All answers are accompanied by a set of links to articles that Grok followed to answer your question. This makes it easy to fact-check Grok’s sources in case of hallucinations.
I’m also liking that Grok’s iOS app packs in a handy Control Center and lockscreen widget for faster access. You can even replace the flashlight or camera shortcut on the lockscreen with a Grok launcher. The app integrates with the Siri assistant and the built-in Shortcuts app, opening interesting automation possibilities.
Grok incorporates large language models, which enables it to improve your writing, summarize large passages of text and rewrite anything to sound more professional, laid back, etc. The app provides free access to the latest Grok 2 model.
Grok integrates an AI image generator to create unique images from scratch based on simple prompts. You can also upload your photos “to gain a deeper understanding of your world,” with four images per query.
For example, uploading a picture of a restaurant may pop up a lovely restaurant card with information about the place, prices, menus, etc.
No word on Grok for Android
xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, debuted Grok in 2023, integrating it into X. Designed to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI chatbots like Google’s Gemini, Grok is a bit more conversational and much less formal than competition.
xAI hasn’t clarified when a standalone Grok Android app might be available. For the time being, Android phone owners can access Grok functionality through the X app. Grok is also available on the web in the United States at grok.com.