Microsoft launches Copilot for iPhones and iPads right after Android
That didn't last long: just days after launching a dedicated Copilot app for Android, Microsoft has restored balance to the universe by making the same app available to users who prefer iPhones and iPads.
As The Verge initially noted, the Copilot app for iOS and iPadOS appears to be an exact replica of the Android app, and is also free to use. The same rules apply: you can use it to a limited extent without signing in, but signing into a Microsoft account gives you more prompts and more features (like image generation capabilities).
If you sign in with a Microsoft account, you can enable the latest and greatest GPT-4 model from Microsoft's partner OpenAI. Responses will generally be slower but better, and considering ChatGPT customers have to pay to get the GPT-4 version, this is a pretty good deal from Microsoft.
While it's a notable move by Microsoft to give Copilot its own app, this doesn't come out of nowhere: virtually all of the functionality here was previously available in the Bing apps for Android and iOS, so little has changed in terms of what you can do.
Copilot everywhere
If you're brand new to generative AI, these tools can produce text and images based on a few user prompts. You can make Copilot do everything from writing a poem on Ny Breaking to capturing an image of a glowing Apple iPhone.
You can also let Copilot search the Internet (for example, if you need board games or travel ideas) and explain complex topics in simple terms. It's a bit like a supercharged version of Google Assistant or Apple's Siri.
Microsoft continues to move quickly with upgrades to Copilot as it knows Apple and Google are improving their own generative AI tools. It seems inevitable that AI will be one of the hottest technology trends of 2024.
And if you don't want to install Copilot on your phone, you can find it in plenty of other places too. The same features are still available as part of Bing on the web, and Copilot has now been added to Windows 11 and Windows 10 as well.