I wanted my iPhone to do more, so I tried an AI personal assistant app
I rarely use Siri for anything beyond the occasional timer or weather check. If a request needs more context than that, my instinct is usually to open the right app and deal with it myself.
So I was curious about the newer idea of an AI personal assistant app.
Could I give it the half-formed requests that bounce around my head and have it help with the next step?
I spent a week trying that with an AI assistant on my iPhone called Eney. I gave it things I already do during a normal week and paid attention to what it handled well, where I still had to step in, and how specific I had to be.
Test #1: Planning my day
My first request was basically: Help me plan today.
The answer was fine, but too generic to be particularly useful. That was mostly on me. “Today” could mean anything if I hadn’t told it what information mattered.
I got a much better result when I asked it to check my Apple Calendar and Reminders, then help me fit a draft I needed to finish around what was already there.
I didn’t have to type out my meetings or remember which small tasks I’d already saved somewhere else.
I also learned my first rule for these requests: tell it where the useful context is.
Test #2: Creating a reminder
This test made the whole AI personal assistant app idea feel more practical because my reminders rarely start as neat little task names.
I gave Eney something closer to:
Tomorrow afternoon, remind me that before I go to the post office I need to print the return label and take the package from the hallway.
It understood what I meant and created the Apple Reminder for me.
That felt more useful than getting a nicely formatted answer in a chat. Normally I would have to clean up the thought myself, open Reminders, decide what to call it, and set the time.
Test #3: Summarizing notes
I also tried giving it notes and documents I didn’t want to reread from the beginning.
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A general “summarize this” worked fine, but I got more useful results when I added what I was looking for. For one note, I wanted the decisions and anything I still needed to do. For another, I only cared about the main argument.
That became another useful lesson from the week: the more I know about what I want from a document, the easier it is to get a summary I’d use.
Test #4: Drafting a message
One afternoon I needed to send a quick message explaining that I’d be late and suggesting a new time.
I gave Eney the rough version in the same way I would have said it out loud, and the draft came back ready to use with very little editing.
For routine messages, that worked nicely.
I did notice the boundary, though: Eney can draft the message, but the mobile skill doesn’t send it for me. I still had to take the result and finish the job myself.
It made me rethink what the best AI assistant app would look like for me. Getting the wording right matters, but I also care about what happens after the draft is ready.
One request showed me what it still can’t do
At some point I asked for something I’d genuinely use:
Every weekday morning, give me a quick summary of my calendar and reminders.
That exposed one of the current limits. Eney can read those apps when I ask and can create reminders, but the iPhone version doesn’t currently run scheduled AI tasks on its own.
I could set a reminder telling me to check, which rather defeats the experiment.
I also missed proper live voice conversation a few times. Dictating a request works, but if you want a personal assistant that talks back and forth while your hands are busy, it’s not quite there yet.
Do you need an AI assistant on your iPhone?
After a week, I think it depends on how often you catch yourself doing small things on your phone that are easy, but still take more steps than they should.
If I were choosing the best AI assistant app for myself now, I’d pay attention to two things:
- whether it works with the apps I already use,
- whether I can ask for things in normal language without carefully preparing the prompt first.
I’m keeping Eney on my phone because I found enough moments where handing something over felt easier than doing it myself. I also don’t feel the need to involve AI in everything, and I’m quite happy with that balance.
