this is how you get the most out of the official iPhone app

OpenAI has made ChatGPT’s official iOS app available in the Netherlands. In this ChatGPT guide you will learn how to get the most out of this app.

ChatGPT guide for the iOS app

For a long time, ChatGPT could only be used via a web browser. Since ChatGPT maker OpenAI didn’t come up with an app, others got to work. That caused a proliferation of mediocre apps in the App Store. Now an official app is finally available and in this guide we tell you what you can do with it.

Find the app

The first obstacle is finding the app. If you search for ‘ChatGPT’ in the App Store, you will be presented with a laundry list of apps with names such as ‘ChatGPT Dutch’, ‘Open Chat AI’ and ‘ChatGPT Open AI’. If you really want to download the official app, you have to be at the button below.

login

You then have to register with OpenAI, but you can also use Log in with Apple for that. If you create a new account, it is mandatory to enter a birthday. There is also a good chance that you have to prove that you are not a robot with a particularly complicated puzzle. Read the instructions carefully and you should be fine.

To work

ChatGPT’s interface is very minimalist: a white screen with a chat bar at the bottom. There you can start typing to give ChatGPT commands. This works in English and Dutch. By pressing the button on the right side of the chat bar, you can also speak your question instead of typing it.

If you swipe from left to right, your history will appear. There you can read back what you have discussed with ChatGPT. This history syncs nicely with the web version if you’re using the same account. If you swipe from right to left, you start a whole new chat.

What you can do

With ChatGPT you can achieve all kinds of things by asking a question. We list some examples for you. It is important to know that ChatGPT can also handle texts that you paste after an assignment. The command and the pasted text are then distinguished from each other.

To search

• “How many kilometers are there between the Earth and the Moon?”
• “I have tomatoes, zucchini, salmon and rice at home. Come up with a recipe for two people.”

Write texts

• “Write a text of two paragraphs in plain language about the role of artificial intelligence in everyday life.”
• “Make up five headlines for an article about the role of artificial intelligence in everyday life.”
• “I want you to formulate a nice response to the following e-mail:”

Summarize texts

• “Summarize the following text, highlighting the five main points:”
• “Put the following data in a table:”

Making complicated matters understandable

• “Rewrite the following text for a 12-year-old to understand:”

Final editing

• “Check the following text for spelling mistakes.”
• “Make suggestions to improve the following text.”

Tips for prompts

The result of ChatGPT is completely dependent on the commands you give. If you can formulate your assignment better, there is a good chance that you will get a better answer. So some tips:

• Try it differently: Start simple, but word your question differently if you don’t get the desired result. ChatGPT is not the same as Google, with the same answer every time.
• Be specific: Provide as many details as possible that are relevant to your assignment. For example, the exact length of the text you want, but also the tone of the text and the target group.
• Role play: It can help to give ChatGPT a role. For example: “You are an enthusiastic salesman and you have to convince someone to buy an ugly car in three sentences, what do you say?”
• Give examples: Just like you can paste a text into ChatGPT to make a summary, you can also paste a text as an example. For example: “Write a text in this style:”

To pay or not to pay

ChatGPT is completely free to use, but there is also a paid version available under the name ChatGPT Plus. You always get priority when there is a lot of demand for ChatGPT and answers are given faster.

The biggest advantage of ChatGPT Plus is that you can use ChatGPT 4, while the free version still uses ChatGPT 3.5. That’s quite an upgrade, because this new version gives better answers and can read and create longer texts.

ChatGPT Plus is not cheap, because you pay 22.99 euros per month. Whether that is worth your money depends mainly on how much you use the app.

Things to keep in mind

There are a few important things to keep in mind when using ChatGPT. First of all your privacy. Everything you type in ChatGPT is used by default to further train the chatbot. So be careful when entering privacy-sensitive information.

The ChatGPT app has a new setting for that. If you go to ‘Data Controls’ in settings, you can turn off the slider at ‘Chat History & Training’. If you want to keep a history of your conversations, you must therefore agree that your data will be used to further train the chatbot. We recommend that you disable this slider.

In addition, you should be aware that the information that ChatGPT provides is not always correct. This is because ChatGPT does not yet understand its own texts very well. That is why it is always wise to check the result carefully.

What about Apple?

Microsoft has ChatGPT and Google has Bard, but what about Apple? This is how an Apple chatbot can beat the competition.