Comparison

TextMates vs Captured!

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

Head to head
About

TextMates

This app transforms your iPhone into a private AI assistant for your documents. Engage in natural conversations with PDFs and text files, receiving intelligent answers with verifiable citations, all processed locally on your device without an internet connection.

Highlights
  • Chat with documents
  • 100% private, on-device processing
  • Import PDFs, text files, and scanned documents
  • Natural language questions and answers
  • Multi-document querying
  • Source citations
  • Offline capable
Features
Read full description

Turn your iPhone into a powerful AI document assistant with TextMates. TextMates brings desktop-class AI capabilities to your iOS device, allowing you to have natural conversations with your documents while keeping everything completely private and on-device. Chat with Your Documents Simply upload PDFs, text files, or documents, and start asking questions. TextMates uses advanced AI to understand your documents and provide intelligent, conversational responses - just like chatting with an expert who has read everything. 100% Private, 100% Local Unlike other AI apps, TextMates runs entirely on your device. Your documents never leave your iPhone, and no internet connection is required after initial setup. Your data stays yours. Key Features: - Smart Document Processing - Import PDFs, text files, and more with advanced OCR for scanned documents - Natural Conversations - Ask questions in plain language and get detailed answers with numbered citations - Multi-Document Intelligence - Query across multiple documents simultaneously - Powerful Search - Combines AI understanding with traditional search for best results - Source Citations - Every answer includes verifiable citations linking back to your documents - Offline Capable - Works without internet after downloading AI models - Background Processing - Documents continue processing even when you switch apps Perfect For: - Students - Quickly find information across textbooks and research papers - Professionals - Analyze reports, contracts, and documentation efficiently - Researchers - Cross-reference sources and extract insights - Anyone who values privacy and wants AI assistance without cloud dependency Advanced Technology: TextMates leverages Apple's latest frameworks including MLX for on-device AI, Vision for OCR, and Metal for GPU acceleration. The app is optimized for Apple Silicon and the Neural Engine, delivering desktop-class performance on your iPhone. Why TextMates? - No subscriptions or hidden fees - No account required - No data collection - No cloud processing - Just powerful, private AI on your device

About

Captured!

This app acts as a universal clipboard, saving links, photos, videos, audio, files, and texts shared from other applications. It offers on-device processing for previews, AI descriptions, OCR, and transcription, with smart organization and full-text search capabilities.

Highlights
  • Universal content capture from any app
  • Automatic previews and AI enrichment
  • On-device OCR and transcription
  • Smart organization with folders and views
  • Full-text search and Spotlight integration
  • iCloud sync for selected folders
  • JSON backup and restore
Features
Read full description

Tired of losing links, photos, videos, audio, files or texts shared from your apps? Captured is your universal clipboard. Tap Share from any app and choose Captured — everything is instantly saved, previewed and enriched, on-device by default. UNIVERSAL CAPTURE Accepts URLs, photos, videos, audio, files and text from any app. Automatic source detection (Safari, YouTube, Instagram, X, Photos...). AUTO-GENERATED PREVIEWS Every item gets a thumbnail: web pages via live browser, photos/videos from first frame, files via QuickLook, audio as waveform, text as typographic render. Thumbnail gallery with on-demand regeneration. AI DESCRIPTION, OCR & TRANSCRIPTION AI image/video description: Apple Vision (free, on-device), OpenAI GPT-4 Vision or Anthropic Claude. Built-in OCR on photos and videos. Audio speech-to-text transcription — all on-device by default, no cloud required. SMART ORGANIZATION Folders with batch move/delete and drag-and-drop reorder. Smart Views: All, Recent (7 days), Unread, With Location, With AI. Configurable sort: manual, newest, oldest, title, source. Filter by type: URL, file, photo, video, audio, text. FULL-TEXT SEARCH & SPOTLIGHT Instant search across titles, URLs, notes, AI descriptions and transcriptions. All items indexed in system Spotlight — searchable from the home screen. RICH METADATA Auto-fetch of web page title and last-modified date (bold title signals updated content). Reverse geocoding of GPS coordinates in photos. WIDGET WidgetKit widget in small, medium and large sizes showing unread items in real time. BACKUP & RESTORE Full JSON export/import (items, folders, settings, thumbnails) with Replace or Merge mode. PRIVACY All your data stays on your device. No account, no server, no ads. Network calls only when you explicitly enable web fetching or AI description via your own API key. iCloud sync, folder by folder Choose exactly which folders you want to find on your other devices. A long press on a folder offers "Sync with iCloud": its photos, videos, files and links — including previews — automatically appear on your iPhone, iPad and Mac linked to the same Apple account. Folders that are not synced remain strictly local. A "Resync iCloud" option lets you reconcile state across devices in one gesture. Link previews: lock, zoom, crop You can now lock a link's preview so it never changes, or enlarge the preview by a factor of 2 to better see thumbnails from your favorite sites. A new setting automatically crops the white or black bands surrounding some previews. Organization: everything by drag-and-drop Reorganize your folders by dragging them in the sidebar. Move an item from one folder to another simply by dragging it onto the destination folder. No more drop-down menus. Paste a link from the clipboard A new menu entry lets you directly add the currently copied link, without going through another app's "Share" menu. Manage your space better The info panel now shows the space used in iCloud when sync is active. A long press on each line gives access to quick actions. The "Delete local data only" option frees up space while keeping your synced folders intact.

Screenshots

TextMates4 screens
Captured!3 screens

Verdict

The call

TextMates and Captured! are too close to call on the numbers: across 9 compared parameters — price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

Both are free to download. 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 TextMates against 5.0 for Captured!. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

TextMates ships an update weekly, Captured! fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
TextMates versus Captured!: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTextMatesCaptured!
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings12 — better
Update frequencyWeekly — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.217.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size29 MB4 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperAnchen LiAlexandre Fenyo

Customer experience

TextMates

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

Captured!

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

TextMates

No in-app purchases

None

Captured!

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is TextMates free?
TextMates is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Captured! free?
Captured! is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, TextMates or Captured!?
TextMates and Captured! are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do TextMates or Captured! have ads?
Neither TextMates nor Captured! shows ads.
Which is updated more often, TextMates or Captured!?
TextMates ships an update weekly, and Captured! fortnightly. Most recently, TextMates was updated on October 30, 2026 and Captured! on October 31, 2026.

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