Comparison

Narratives vs Relay Shortcut Trigger

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

Head to head
About

Narratives

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Thoughts do not arrive in order. Narratives helps you bring them together. Write a few messages or dictate a voice note: an idea, a plan, details you do not want to forget, or a question you are still working through. Talk it over at your own pace. After the conversation, Narratives organizes the material into a card with the main idea, useful details, decisions, and questions that remain open. FROM SCATTERED THOUGHTS TO A USEFUL NOTE • Capture thoughts by text, voice, or photo. • Return to the original messages whenever you need context. • Edit the card to make it your own. • Preview and share just the card as text or images. Long image exports use multiple pages. • Export a full dialogue separately when you want to include the source conversation. SEE WHAT CONNECTS Daily summaries bring together the important topics from your conversations. Weekly summaries connect recurring themes, changes, and questions that are still open. Events and reminders, saved memories, web search, and weather are also available when useful. PRIVATE, ON YOUR IPHONE The conversational AI, voice transcription, and image analysis run on your device. Your conversations, cards, and saved memories are stored locally. No account, subscription, or in-app purchase is required. The model downloads separately on first launch; core AI features become available when setup completes. Optional online tools send the necessary request to an external service, for example for web search or weather. Sharing and backup export happen when you choose. You can review, correct, or delete saved memories in Settings. AI can make mistakes. Keep the original conversation, review important details, and edit a card before sharing it. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Relay Shortcut Trigger

Features
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Relay turns a spare iPhone or iPad into a hands-free Shortcuts trigger. Run any Shortcut on a repeating interval or at specific times of day, or fire it from another device on your Wi-Fi with a simple, token-protected local web request. No subscription. No account. No cloud. Everything runs on your device and your local network. WHY RELAY Some automations only work when a device actively opens an app or runs a Shortcut — showing a camera dashboard every few minutes, rotating a status display, kicking off a sync, opening a kiosk app on a timer. iOS only allows an app to launch Shortcuts while it is in the foreground, so Relay is built to be exactly that: a reliable foreground scheduler you leave running on a dedicated device. SCHEDULER • Unlimited rules, each with its own Shortcut, interval (from 1 minute) or list of exact times • Optional active window per rule (e.g. only 8:00–17:00), overnight windows supported • Wall-clock scheduling: if a fire time passes while the schedule was paused, Relay catches up the moment it becomes active again • Live countdown to the next trigger, per rule and overall LOCAL NETWORK TRIGGER • Built-in HTTP endpoint on your Wi-Fi: GET /run?shortcut=Name — from a laptop, home server, Raspberry Pi, or any browser • Token-protected (query token or Bearer header), with one-tap token generation • Bonjour advertising (_relay._tcp) so other devices find the phone even when its IP changes • /health and /next endpoints for monitoring and scripting, plus a built-in status web page • Foreground-only and LAN-only by design — nothing is ever exposed to the internet KIOSK ESSENTIALS • Keep-awake (never lets the screen sleep) while active • Stall detection: if another app kept focus and the loop stopped, Relay shows a one-tap resume banner and can notify you • Battery level and charging state on screen, with Guided Access guidance for true kiosk setups • Live event log of every trigger, request, and state change EXTRAS • Home-screen widget with the next trigger and last run • Live Activity countdown in the Dynamic Island while the schedule runs • Diagnostics page: foreground state, listener state, address, recent triggers • Step-by-step onboarding that builds your first automation loop with you Relay is 100% free — every feature, forever. It runs the Shortcuts you created, and it never collects any data.

Screenshots

Narratives4 screens
Relay Shortcut Trigger4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Narratives at daily against Relay Shortcut Trigger's every 2 months. Relay Shortcut Trigger's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Narratives ships an update daily, Relay Shortcut Trigger every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 3 level
Narratives versus Relay Shortcut Trigger: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNarrativesRelay Shortcut Trigger
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyDaily — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size86 MB5 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperMikhail KolokolnikovAll Things AI, Inc

In-app purchases

None

Narratives

No in-app purchases

None

Relay Shortcut Trigger

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Narratives free?
Narratives is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Relay Shortcut Trigger free?
Relay Shortcut Trigger is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Narratives or Relay Shortcut Trigger have ads?
Neither Narratives nor Relay Shortcut Trigger shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Narratives or Relay Shortcut Trigger?
Narratives ships an update daily, and Relay Shortcut Trigger every 2 months. Most recently, Narratives was updated on October 11, 2026 and Relay Shortcut Trigger on October 24, 2026.

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