The assistant

When the assisted features are on, an assistant floats over every screen. It is there to save you taps — put this on the list, make that a to-do, read this receipt — and to answer questions about the app itself. It is never in charge of anything.

Its button opens a sheet over the bottom of the screen. The button in the sheet's corner takes the whole screen for a long conversation and gives it back, and ✕ closes it.

Assisted features

The assistant, pantry photos, reading text off a photo, finding the to-dos in a note and the tidied names on a scanned receipt are the assisted features. They are switched on per deployment. Without them the app runs entirely on its own arithmetic and what you type — the receipt scanner included, which reads the receipt on your phone — and nothing else about it changes.

What it can do

• Put something on a shopping list. "Add oat milk to the grocery list."
• Add a to-do, with details. "Remind me to call the vet about Biscuit's booster, the number is on the vet note."
• Start a note. "Start a note called Kitchen plan." A chip under its reply opens the note it made.
• File either in a folder. It knows the household's folders by their path, "Kitchen › Renovation", so "make a note in Kitchen › Renovation about the tiles" lands there. Say nothing about where, and it goes under Personal.
• Add a fact to a to-do that already exists. "The plumber said Tuesday — add that to the boiler to-do."
• Rewrite the note you are reading. While a note is open, "tidy this up" or "add a section for costs" changes that note. A long note (past about 8,000 characters) it reads whole first, part by part, before it rewrites — a rewrite from the first part alone would lose the rest — and until it has, the rewrite is refused and it says so.
• Answer anything else. A how-to, a recommendation, something in the world — it answers directly, searching the web when the answer needs it, and does not treat every question as one about your notes.
• Find places. "Where can I get Mexican food nearby?" or "a tile store in Southlake" comes back with real places as cards under the reply — Call, Directions, Website. With your location shared, the nearest places within 25 km of you come back, nearest first with how far each is. Without it, it searches only a town you named — it never guesses one; if you have named none, it asks first. A town you name elsewhere is searched as named. Each lands under Recent on Places, where a star keeps it, Copy takes its details and New note makes a note of it.
• Ask where you are, when that matters. "Where can I get Mexican food nearby?" needs a place. If you have not said one, it asks, and a Share my location button appears under its reply: tap it and your phone's position goes to it as your next message, or just type a neighbourhood or a town. See Location.
• Explain the app. "How do I make a to-do from a note?" is answered from the same text this guide is written from.

What it adds lands while it is still writing its reply, so a note or to-do is on its shelf by the time you have read that it is.

Live facts. Phone numbers, emails, links and addresses in a reply are links where they stand: tap the number to call it, the address to map it, the email to write. A number it looked up is one tap to dial.

What it will not do

It cannot remove, rename, complete or check anything off. Ask, and it says so and points at the row itself. That is by design: the things that change your data for good are always your own tap.

It cannot make, edit or find new images.

What it knows

While you are talking to it, the assistant is shown:

• the household's lists, open to-dos, note titles and questions from inside the look-back window (ninety days unless changed in Settings);
• the full text of the note you are reading, while one is open;
• other notes on request, up to eight reads per turn — "read the boiler note" — and a read note lists its photos and gives the text of its PDFs. A long note is read in parts, and the assistant reads on when the answer could be further down, the note on screen included;
• who is typing, and the @handle the household writes for you, once you have said This is me. Otherwise it knows only that you are a member;
• where you are, only once you have shared it for a question that needed it — see Location.

Location

The assistant does not know where you are. When a question turns on it — what is nearby, the closest of something, directions — it asks, and a Share my location button appears under that reply. Tapping it takes one fix from your phone and sends it as your next message, "Here's where I am."; the phone asks for permission the first time, and if it cannot get a fix, the assistant says so and you can type a place instead. Typing one is always just as good.

A location you share is used for that phone's questions over the next half hour, so "what about pizza?" a minute later is not asked again. It is never saved: not in the thread, not in the household, not anywhere else.

Photos

The photo button beside the message box attaches photos to a message. Its first tile takes one with the camera or picks one from the phone's library, and while a note is open, that note's photos are offered beside it — three at most per message, and the assistant is told which came from where.

It can show one of a note's photos under its reply. The photo opens its note when tapped.

Two photo jobs have their own buttons and do not need the assistant at all:

• Scan a receipt (read on the phone, on every deployment) and photograph a pantry shelf, from the Lists home. See Lists and regulars.
• Read text on a note's photo. See Notes.

And one for a note's words: Find to-dos, in a note's In this note sheet, which reads the note for actions and lets you pick which become to-dos. See Notes.

Allowance

Each account has an allowance for the assisted features. Settings → Assistant usage shows two meters — today and this month — and when each comes back: daily at midnight UTC, monthly on the 1st. When either is used up, the assisted features pause and everything else keeps working.

If an assisted feature could not be reached, the Service list in Settings records it, so a quiet failure is never a mystery.