Why Spril thinks on your iPhone

Spril reads everything you give it. It has to, to file a note under the right subject or answer a question from what you wrote. So the most important decision we made was where that reading happens.

We made it early. Every model Spril uses runs on your iPhone, and each one has a single job:

• Thinking writes titles and summaries, and answers in Talk.
• Sorting files your notes under subjects.
• Listening turns speech into text.
• Scanning reads the words on a scanned page.
• Seeing finds photos by what's in them.
• Speaking reads answers aloud.

Spril downloads them from Apple when you set it up. After that, they work without a connection.

What you get

• Your notes stay yours. They're read where you wrote them, and no one trains a model on them.
• It works offline. Spril files, searches and answers in Talk on a plane or underground, from what's already on your iPhone.
• When you forget something, it's gone. Forget a note or a whole subject, and Spril deletes it everywhere on your iPhone and gives you a deletion record.

What it costs

A model that fits on a phone is smaller than one in a data center. It writes shorter answers, and it knows less about the wider world. For a tool that holds your private notes, we think that's the right trade: Spril needs to know your notes well, not everything else.

What does leave your iPhone

Only what you choose to share, and what Spril fetches for you. When you share a note or a task with someone, Spril encrypts it on your iPhone first, so its servers carry it without being able to read it. Spril also fetches the articles you read, previews of links in your notes and the weather, as any app on your iPhone would. The privacy page lists everything.