Comparison

Ari Helper vs Ethan AI Assistant

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Ari Helper

This AI assistant operates entirely offline, prioritizing user privacy by not collecting personal data. It integrates with Siri for hands-free activation and offers text-to-speech capabilities. Users can manage conversations, download custom models, and even interact with self-hosted or cloud-based AI services.

Highlights
  • Offline AI operation
  • Siri and App Intents integration
  • Privacy-focused, no data collection
  • Text-to-Speech with voice options
  • Conversation history sync via iCloud
  • Downloadable custom AI models
  • Code syntax highlighting
Features
Read full description

Introducing Ari - Your Easy-to-Use AI Assistant! Meet Ari, your personal AI assistant, right on your device! Ari runs its models on the device itself, so it works entirely offline — no internet connection required. Your privacy is our priority – Ari doesn't collect any of your personal data. Start Ari anywhere with Siri and App Intents — just say "Ask Ari," speak your question, and hear the answer back. Power users get a full Shortcuts catalog: Ask Ari with any model (Apple Intelligence, local, or cloud), start chats, generate and edit images, analyze PDFs, speak replies, change settings, queue Code Session tasks on Mac, and dispatch prompts to other devices — all chainable in Shortcuts. Ari is on your wrist too: the Apple Watch app remote-controls Ari on iPhone. Dictate from the "Ask Ari" complication or Smart Stack, watch answers stream in, hear them spoken, and hand long replies to iPhone. Questions queue when the phone is away; private chats stay off the watch. Conversations show up in Spotlight — including by what's in their images. Ari reads text and objects in chat pictures on-device so you can search for "that screenshot with the receipt". Private media is never indexed. With Sensitive Content Warning on, flagged images blur behind "Show Anyway" (verified adults can opt out). More to love: Text-to-Speech (device voice or Ava); long-press to copy or retry across models; syntax highlighting with one-tap code copy; Previous Chats synced via iCloud. On Apple Intelligence (iOS 26 / macOS 26 and later), Ari uses the on-device foundation model by default — private, no API key, no network. Attach images: on iOS 27 and macOS 27 the model sees them directly; on OS 26 Ari describes them on-device with the Vision framework (text, tables, barcodes, subjects). Prefer full vision models? Pick one from the menu. Download on-device models with a tap — Google's Gemma 4 for chat, Stable Diffusion converted for Core ML for pictures — or import a model folder of your own. Self-host with Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible server (LM Studio, vLLM, llama.cpp, LiteLLM), or generate images with Draw Things over gRPC. New in Ari 7: Ari makes pictures and films, and repairs the ones you already have. Films is a studio — write a film as a list of shots, render them one at a time, keep the ones that work, and watch the cut come together in a player above the timeline. Pictures get a canvas editor: brush over a crease and heal it, paint a leash or a stranger out of the frame, or treat the whole photograph — repair, denoise, sharpen camera shake, colorize, upscale four times. Every restoration model runs on your device and downloads on first use rather than shipping in the app. Point the camera at something and ask about it. Look at Something sends the frame to whichever model you have selected — on-device, self-hosted or cloud — captions the answer under the picture and speaks it if you like. Talk to it and it listens, answers, then listens again. It sits beside the microphone, and goes on the Lock Screen, Control Center, the Action Button or Siri. Cloud providers with your own keys: OpenAI (GPT-6 and GPT-5 families plus GPT Image), xAI Grok (4.7 plus Grok Imagine), Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini (plus Nano Banana and Omni video), and AWS Bedrock. Image-capable models accept photos; import text and source files. Cloud use reminds you each provider's privacy policy applies. On Mac, open a Code Session on a project folder with Grok for agentic tools — read, edit, search, git, shell, browser, web, and MCP — so Ari's GUI agent matches a terminal coding agent. Note: For strongest privacy with iCloud sync, enable Advanced Data Protection. Without it, conversations stay limited to your iCloud account but are not fully end-to-end encrypted. Optionally powered by Gemma 4 (HuggingFace) for offline chat and image understanding. Download Ari and keep your AI assistant at your fingertips!

About

Ethan AI Assistant

This voice-based AI assistant runs locally on your device for privacy-focused conversations. It remembers information only when explicitly asked and can create reminders using your device's native app. Internet access is not required for most functions.

Highlights
  • Voice-based interaction
  • User-defined wake name
  • Offline AI processing
  • Intentional memory saving
  • Reminder creation
  • Optional local weather
Features
Read full description

This app is a fun, voice-based AI assistant designed to run directly on your device. During first use, you give the assistant a name, which it listens for during conversations. The name can be changed at any time in Settings. The assistant is intentionally lightweight, privacy-focused, and a little old-school in spirit. Instead of relying on constant internet access, the assistant runs locally and focuses on simple conversations and intentional interactions. Because it works on-device, responses may take a moment — especially for broader questions — but stored information and reminders are handled quickly and reliably. To save information, the user must explicitly ask the assistant to remember something by saying “Remember…”. Saved memories include the date they were recorded and can be referenced later. The assistant does not store information unless you clearly ask it to do so. The app can also create reminders using the built-in iOS Reminders app when you ask it to set one. Internet access is not required for normal use. A weather feature can optionally use location access to show local conditions and can be turned off at any time. No account or login is required. What This App Is (and Isn’t) • A voice assistant that responds to a user-defined name • Designed for simple, intentional conversations • Runs primarily offline, directly on your device • Stores memories only when explicitly asked • Includes dates with saved memories • Can create reminders using the iOS Reminders app • Does not passively record or store information • Not intended for real-time research or up-to-date facts • Not designed to replace cloud-based assistants • Best suited for casual use and experimentation Key Features • Voice-based interaction with speech recognition • User-defined wake name (changeable at any time) • Offline AI processing for core assistant features • Intentional memory saving using “Remember…” commands • Reminder creation via the iOS Reminders app • Optional local weather using location access • No account or login required • Graceful offline behaviour

Screenshots

Ari Helper4 screens
Ethan AI Assistant4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Ethan AI Assistant at $5.99 against Ari Helper's $24.99. Ethan AI Assistant also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Ari Helper's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On rating, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Ari Helper costs $24.99 and Ethan AI Assistant $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Ari Helper against 5.0 for Ethan AI Assistant. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Ari Helper versus Ethan AI Assistant: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAri HelperEthan AI Assistant
Price$24.99$5.99 — better
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size92 MB2.1 GB
Age rating17+12+
DeveloperBlaine MillerStylographix

Customer experience

Ari Helper

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Ethan AI Assistant

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Ari Helper

No in-app purchases

None

Ethan AI Assistant

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ari Helper free?
Ari Helper costs $24.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Ethan AI Assistant free?
Ethan AI Assistant costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Ari Helper or Ethan AI Assistant?
Ari Helper and Ethan AI Assistant are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Ari Helper or Ethan AI Assistant have ads?
Neither Ari Helper nor Ethan AI Assistant shows ads.

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