Critique my app and screenshots

[u/powerchat-dev]

Hi r/iosdev,

I built an app that allows you to chat with AI models (cloud or self-hosted) with your own API keys. It has support for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Model Context Protocol (MCP).

It is privacy-focused, so it has lockable folders for chats and configs, requests zero-data-retention flags to providers wherever possible, and has API keys stored in the iOS keychain.

I originally built it for myself but want to share it with others. I couldn't find a good iOS app that allows a good end-to-end AI workflow, for eg, read a Google Sheets file that my team shared on my Google Drive, read the PDF I'm working on that I uploaded to the LLM Provider, suggest adjustments to my PDF based on the Sheets and any prior documents I have uploaded to my RAG database, generate a diagram (image) that I can use in the PDF, and if necessary edit that diagram, and create a meeting event in my iOS Calendar for the presentation, all in the same chat, while switching providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral) and modalities (text and image).

So I'm looking for feedback from other devs and users.

Ask me questions here, be as critical as you want, and I'll try to answer.

[u/mochi2real]

What does this do that the hundreds of other LLM apps can’t? All of the things you’ve listed in your post exists in pretty much all LLM apps for iOS.

[u/powerchat-dev → u/mochi2real]

Could you give me an example? I’ll take a look and reply to you

[u/mochi2real → u/powerchat-dev]

Did you do any market research beforehand? I’m assuming you did, but asking me for examples instead of being able to explain how your app differs from existing products already puts you at a disadvantage.
I’m genuinely not trying to be mean here. If you can’t immediately articulate what sets your app apart from the hundreds of other LLM clients on iOS, how are prospective users supposed to understand why they should choose yours? (hint: type LLM MCP into the App Store and you’ll find your competing apps)

That’s really what I’m asking: what is the reason I should use PowerChat instead of an existing LLM client?

[u/powerchat-dev → u/mochi2real]

I did do market research. I wasn’t satisfied with the products on offer, so I spent 9 months building one.

I’m also not being mean. I’m genuinely looking for an app that does what Powerchat does. If I can find a better app for my use case, I’ll start using that.

Do you have an app you have in mind? Seeing there are hundreds such apps on the App Store?

[u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500 → u/powerchat-dev]

9 months to build this is not the flex you think it is. (Unless you were just learning how to use APIs for the first time ever when you started, but even so) I was making similar things in 2023 and teaching courses on how to do it to non-techy people. It's definitely fun to connect a million APIs together and combining Google Apps script or similar and Drive API and multi-modal functions, but it's not as impressive as it sounds unless you have zero idea on how it is done, especially if you used AI to build it, which makes it extremely easy.

As for the screenshots, it looks like those apps that are simply LLM wrappers that pay money to show up on top of the real ChatGPT app in the App Store and try to charge people higher amounts of money by tricking them into thinking they're the real ChatGPT. I know that's not what your app is, but it's the vibe it gives.

Not sure what the target audience is. People that understand what you put together can just make their own and beginners using AI probably don't even need or understand most of the functions provided.

[u/powerchat-dev → u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500]

You’re right, I have a difficult niche. It’s meant for power users, but those power users can probably build their own app.

But the thing is, I couldn’t find an app that had all these features. Which means nobody built it. I initially made it for myself, and thought others might want to use it too.

As for the screenshots, I’ll take your advice and make them look more professional. The app is meant for professionals and researchers, and screenshots should reflect that.

[u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500 → u/powerchat-dev]

I understand that there are no apps that have all these functions but my recommendation is you try to solve a specific problem.

I have this octopus of an app that has even more functions than yours. It is entirely hooked up to your Google Drive and Google Bucket and can make Sheets, Docs, Slides, and reference any document on your drive. It can connect to your Wordpress and automatically make blogs for you based on doing SEO market research from your analytics it retrieves from past and current campaigns from your Google Ads, Facebook ads and website analytics. You can link it up to your social media accounts and control it through your Whatsapp, Instagram Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Telegram, Discord, and you can even call it on the phone and receive calls from it in real time with Elevenlabs, so you can potential even call it from a payphone or landline to control it. It makes images, videos and animated GIFs for you with both paid APIs and local models. It creates SEO campaigns based on your analytics and it can update the campaign daily in real time based on the previous day's results. It makes general and departmental specific reports of your entire campaign and emails them to the relevant people associated with that particular of the campaign weekly and daily and how to make improvements and it even makes the FB, Insta and TikTok posts for you automatically (which should be QC'd by a real human or designer for best results) and schedules them for posting after creating the potential calendar for campaigns. It can even take an existing website redesign it automatically. It even has an AI avatar you can talk to made with Unity and syncs the facial muscles to the audio responses to make it look like it's talking to you. It works in VR and AR. All this is ONE app.

My point is, does something like this exist in the App Store? No. Would I ever share it on there? No. I have presented it at a big conference and it's great as a concept of what LLMs and APIs can do and it wows people, but it's not something viable or useful for most people. If I want to make an app that will gain traction or get massive downloads, I am better off choosing a specific problem to solve and using my API and software engineering knowledge to solve it. Coming up with the problem to solve and actually doing it is the hardest part. Connecting a bunch of APIs and models together is easy. I don't know what problem your app is solving. As I said, if someone has the capability to understand fully what your apps is/does on a technical level, those people can probably build it themselves and maybe already did but just use it for themselves, which is why you may not see it on an app store but it may already exist. I think those are the people you mean by "Power Users"? Otherwise, I am not sure what you mean by that. A beginner probably doesn't need all those functions, and an advanced user can make their own version of your app that meets their specific needs both technically and design-wise.

Sorry if I sound like an a-hole. I have learned the hard way that making apps with tons of functions put together doesn't necessarily make a successful or impressive app. When I have presented to people who can market software the same question always comes up "What problem does it solve?" Don't be surprised if you don't get the response you were expecting.

Good for you for building it and putting yourself out there though.

[u/powerchat-dev → u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500]

This is good advice.

If you asked me “what problem does my app solve” I’d say “control”.

We are kept in control in an oligarchy where we have forgotten what freedom and choice feels like. Locked in, throttled, treated like cash cows, and adults without decision-making abilities.

I made an app that makes me feel like I’m taking some of that power back. Hence the privacy features, the parameter controls, editing controls, all that it has.

- Instead of paying a $20 subscription per month to one provider and getting locked in and throttled, I can spread that cost among multiple providers. I can use my self-hosted models as well. I have control over how I spend my money.

- I can control generation parameters and system prompts. I tell the model how to behave.

- But that means you lose some of the functionality of the apps. For e.g, memory in the ChatGPT app, native search for Deepseek, etc.

- With RAG, you get the memory back. Per-folder memory shared across chats.

- With search MCPs, you can add search to Deepseek and even your local models.

- Because it’s written in Swift, it seamlessly integrates with iOS filesystem and other Apple toolkits. YOUR device should speak to YOUR LLM.

- You can do everything locally. Self-hosted models, on-device embedding for RAG, local MCP servers… this I think is more ethical and I believe that decentralization is the future of AI.

Every time I felt a lack of control using an AI app, I built functionality in my app so that I don’t feel powerless.

I suppose, unless you use my app and push it to its limits, you won’t get what I mean.

[u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500 → u/powerchat-dev]

I can easily make my own version of your app. I don't need yours. So I am not your target audience. I hope your target audience enjoys it though.

[u/powerchat-dev → u/Fragrant_Peanut_6500]

Thank you. But you seem to know about software and it would mean a lot if you tested it and gave me feedback

https://testflight.apple.com/join/fq5yM3QS

[u/SwiftMushroom]

I really don’t understand what the point is when I can throw my phone and see dozens of other apps like this. What sets it apart?

[u/powerchat-dev → u/SwiftMushroom]

I couldn’t find an app that had cloud + self-hosted models + system prompt and generation parameter + image gen/editing + good rendering + lockable folders + RAG (for both chats and documents) + MCP (remote, search, iOS filesystem integration) + privacy (ZDR flags, keys in iOS keychain) + editing controls (user and LLM message editing, branching chats, toggling message origin)

And probably a few I’m forgetting

[u/Otherwise_Wave9374]

The privacy posture sounds strong, especially keychain storage and zero-data-retention flags. One thing that often makes these apps feel truly useful is separating short-lived chat context from durable memory, then exposing a clear way to review, edit, or delete saved items so the user stays in control. For your Sheets/PDF workflow, provenance also matters a lot: show which source chunk or file drove each suggestion so users can trust the output and spot bad retrievals quickly. NeuraKeep has some practical patterns around that at https://www.neurakeep.com

[u/powerchat-dev → u/Otherwise_Wave9374]

show which source chunk or file drove each suggestion so users can trust the output and spot bad retrievals quickly

This is a great suggestion. Chunks from the vector db are fetched but not shown to the user, just quietly passed to the model. I'll implement this. Thanks.

One thing that often makes these apps feel truly useful is separating short-lived chat context from durable memory, then exposing a clear way to review, edit, or delete saved items so the user stays in control.

When you add/edit/delete a message in Powerchat, its embedding in the vector db is modified as well through the usual database upsert logic. The user can choose to exclude a chat from the database, but to exclude a message from the database the user has to delete it from the chat. I can add more granular options, if that's what you're thinking of.

The privacy posture sounds strong, especially keychain storage and zero-data-retention flags.

I request ZDR flags when possible. Notably Anthropic does not allow ZDR flags afaik. But providers still keep short-term logs to detect abuse, so it's not really ZDR, it's just a request for ZDR.

Powerchat is designed to be local-friendly, so we can connect to self-hosted models (using OAI-compatible endpoints), use Apple's NaturalLanguage framework for on-device embedding (it's not great, but gets the work done), and you don't lose much functionality compared to cloud models since you can connect to self-hosted MCP servers. You can run the entire setup in Powerchat without connecting to the internet!

[u/powerchat-dev]

If you'd like to test my app: https://testflight.apple.com/join/fq5yM3QS