Perplexity: AI Search Comes to iPad ðŸ§
Perplexity: AI Search Comes to iPad ðŸ§
taking at look at yet another AI app
Perplexity is probably the biggest generative AI search tool at the moment (though OpenAI could be getting that title soon).
Here’s my take on their iPad app.
Search
Perplexity’s big feature is AI search. It’s the core of the app.
If you haven’t used it, it’s pretty neat.
Search something like you would in Google. Perplexity will crawl the web, find cool sources of info, and summarize a response to answer your question. You can then follow up, share the response, etc.
My personal favorite feature is the ability to focus to a specific type of content.
For instance, if I’m looking for product reviews, Social is way better than anything else.
On the other hand, explaining complex geopolitical struggles is probably better suited for academic sources.
Discover
Discover’s another cool feature.
Though to be fair, it’s a pretty common feature among similar apps.
Threads
Threads is more interesting. I think it’s cool that you get to see everything in a clean interface.
Again, though, it’s nothing crazy.
Spaces
Spaces is one feature I actually am excited about.
From what I can tell, it looks like you can create a shared group to search content and find specific ideas.
For instance, think about planning a quick trip with your friends. You can search for tons of different info, like:
how to get to your destination
what to do there
what the weather will be like
etc
Then, you can save all of this info and refer back to it at any time. Anyone with access can gather and share info.
I wonder what other use cases could exist. If any come to mind, reply to this post.
Perplexity Pro
Perplexity Pro is pretty pricy: $20/mo or $200/yr.
If you get pro, I would stick with the monthly subscription. God knows what new flashy AI search app could pop up next week.
Here’s what they offer in pro:
Discord access
Pro support
300 Pro searches (better LLMs I believe)
Voice Mode
File Analysis
Worth It?
Pro is not worth it. If you disagree, get the monthly subscription. Yearly probably isn’t worth it this early on.
As for actually using it—I don’t know.
The results have been pretty meh. This might just be purely coincidental, but I’ve found that directly interacting with ChatGPT or Claude gives me better results.
The only time I’ve really found Perplexity to be worth it is when looking for websites to conduct research. Specifically, using Focus mode to find websites in specific categories.
I will say though—the Perplexity iPad app appears to have the same features of perplexity.ai itself. That’s pretty neat to see (and can’t be said about a lot of other apps).
Final Thoughts
Perplexity isn’t great right now. Don’t go pro. But wait a year and maybe it’ll be worth it.
Thanks for reading!
Adi
PS—Check out Concepts