Grok’s mobile app is here – and it may not be so careful
There’s a mobile app for that Grok rollout of xAI on iOS. The standalone app marks an important step in taking the bot beyond the boundaries of X (formerly Twitter). Although only in beta testing in Australia and a few other places, Grok is clearly ready to take its place among AI chatbot apps like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude.
The mobile app mimics the key features of Grok and uses the same Grok-2 AI model. The app rewrites and summarizes text, answers questions, and creates images from text prompts. It also has access to real-time data from the Internet and X. Grok was previously exclusive to paying X subscribers. But in November, xAI started testing a free version of the chatbot and rolled it out to all users earlier this month. The company is also working on a dedicated website, Grok.com, that promises to make the chatbot even more widely available.
Gross the photo
One of the notable features of Grok is its ability to generate images. xAI claims that Grok excels at “photorealistic rendering”, and unlike some competitors, it doesn’t place strict limitations on what you can create. Grok can also analyze images uploaded by users. Imagine pointing your phone’s camera at a plant and gaining instant insight into its species or health.
The use of the image generator is interesting because the Flux AI image maker, which the chatbot on X relies on, takes a relaxed approach to copyright and trademark. That’s led to people getting in trouble for creating images of characters like Mario, with Nintendo’s infringement hunter Tracer going after them for infringement. Instead, the Grok app can use Aurora, an image model that xAI released very briefly before disappearing again.