The iPhone 15 series made its debut earlier this month at Apple’s ‘Wonderlust’ event, bringing with it a host of new changes to the company’s traditional design. Most notably, the new phones have replaced the much-maligned lightning port with the standardized USB Type-C. iPhone 15 Pro models have also done away with the series’ regular mute switch, opting instead for a customizable action button, which actually expands the possibilities of what you can do on an iPhone 15 Pro with the touch of a button. Because the action button can be assigned to a range of apps and functionalities, including the Shortcuts app on the iPhone, virtually any app can now be linked to it. And as some have discovered, you can now use ChatGPT as your voice assistant instead of Siri on iPhone 15 Pro.
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s wildly popular generative AI chatbot, gained support for voice conversations earlier this week, allowing it to have a natural back-and-forth conversation with users. This feature, which is currently only available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers, essentially transforms the chatbot into an AI-powered voice assistant. Using Apple’s new action button, ChatGPT can now easily replace Siri as the voice assistant of choice on iPhone 15 Pro. As ZDNet first noted, the ChatGPT app on iOS can be linked to the action button using the Shortcuts app.
Simply download OpenAI’s ChatGPT app from the App Store – it’s free. Then go to Settings>Action button on your iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, then swipe to select the Shortcuts option. Then tap ‘Choose a feature’ and simply select the ChatGPT app. This links the ChatGPT app on iPhone to the action button, so you can open the app from your home screen with a single tap.
Since ChatGPT is now voice-activated, it can effectively replace Siri as the default voice assistant on iPhone 15 Pro. However, as mentioned earlier, the voice features are only available to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise subscribers for now. A ChatGPT Plus subscription starts at $20 (approximately Rs. 1,660) per month. iPhone users can already use the popular Google Assistant instead of Siri via the dedicated iOS app. The app can also be linked to a shortcut, so that when you say “hey, Siri, hey, Google,” Siri will direct you to the Google Assistant for your questions.
Additionally, ChatGPT Plus users can now also browse the web after ChatGPT’s cut-off date in September 2021. OpenAI announced Thursday that ChatGPT users will be able to start browsing the web, essentially expanding the data the chatbot can access beyond the previous end of September 2021. With the Action Button, iPhone 15 Pro users could now also access updated information from the Internet via ChatGPT. This feature is also currently limited to ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers, but OpenAI plans to expand it to all users soon.