Claude for iPhone and iPad

The Claude iOS app in 2026 - requirements, ratings, voice mode, camera and file uploads, shortcuts, and how to manage or cancel a Pro subscription bought through Apple.

Claude for iPhone and iPad is Anthropic's official iOS app, listed on the App Store as “Claude by Anthropic”. It requires iOS 18.0 or later, downloads at roughly 169 MB, and is free to install on every plan. One binary covers both iPhone and iPad - there is no separate iPad app.

It is a full client, not a cut-down companion: chat, voice mode, camera and document uploads, Projects, Memory, connectors and Artifacts all work, and everything syncs with the web app. Install from the App Store listing linked on claude.com/download.

#What can the Claude iOS app actually do?

Almost everything the browser does. The App Store listing describes writing help, coding and debugging, web search with citations, analysis of photos, PDFs and screenshots, and hands-free voice conversations in multiple languages. Three capabilities are genuinely more useful on a phone than a laptop.

#Voice mode, in more detail

Voice mode is a spoken back-and-forth, not dictation into a text box. Pick a preset voice at setup and adjust the speech pace; on mobile those controls sit in chat settings. Multilingual support works on all plans, with non-English still in beta. Three limits before you rely on it: voice conversations count against normal usage limits, Claude Fable is unavailable in voice mode, and voice cannot be used with Cowork or Claude Code. Enterprise admins can have it disabled.

#Photos, PDFs and file uploads

The app accepts photos from the camera or library, screenshots, and documents through the standard iOS file picker. Note the hard boundary that applies across every Claude surface: it does not accept video or audio as input, and generates no images, video or audio of its own. That is a property of the models, not the app - see the Claude models page.

#Shortcuts, Siri and the share sheet

Anthropic documents an “Ask Claude” App Intent, which is what makes the app feel native rather than bolted on. It fires from Spotlight, from Siri, from the iOS share menu, and from any app supporting iOS intents. Being a real intent, it also chains inside Shortcuts, so you can automate “take this selection, ask Claude, return the answer”. There is a home-screen widget with buttons for a new chat, dictation and taking a photo, and an “Analyze Photo with Claude” control for Control Center or the Lock Screen. All draw from the same usage allocation as ordinary chats.

#Does the iOS app sync with the web and desktop apps?

Yes, completely. Conversations, Projects, Memory and settings live with your account rather than the device, so a chat started on your phone on the train is open on your laptop when you sit down. The requirement is simply to sign in with the same email or Google account everywhere - there are no passwords to keep in sync, because Claude does not use passwords at all.

The one surface that behaves differently is Claude Code. The mobile app is a client for Claude Code sessions, not a place where code runs: from the Code tab you can reach cloud sessions, drive a local session by Remote Control, or hand a task to the desktop app with Dispatch. Terminal-only commands such as /plugin and /resume do not work from the phone, bypass-permissions mode cannot be selected there, and Dispatch requires Pro or Max - it is not available on Team or Enterprise. See Claude for developers for what that workflow looks like end to end, and the desktop app page for the machine at the other end of it.

#How do I manage or cancel a Claude subscription bought in the iOS app?

This is the single most common source of confusion, so start with the rule that causes it:

#Cancelling an Apple-billed Claude subscription

1. Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Tap your name at the top - the Apple Account row.
3. Tap Subscriptions.
4. Select Claude from the list of active subscriptions.
5. Tap Cancel Subscription, then confirm. If you do not see a cancel option, the subscription is already cancelled and simply has not reached its end date.

Cancelling stops the renewal, not access: you keep the paid plan until the end of the period already paid for, then drop to the free plan with conversations intact. Refunds go through Apple's “Report a Problem” process - Anthropic cannot refund a charge it never took.

#Apple billing vs Anthropic billing

The two routes buy the same product but behave differently, and the price is not always the same. The App Store listing shows Claude Pro at $20/month, Claude Max tiers at $124.99–$249.99/month, and usage-credit bundles from $28 - noticeably above Anthropic's direct Max prices of $100 and $200 per month, because Apple's platform fee is priced in. If cost matters, subscribe on the web.

A practical consequence: if you want to switch from Apple billing to Anthropic billing, cancel through Apple first and wait for the period to end, then subscribe on the web. Subscribing on the web while an Apple subscription is still live risks paying twice. Plan mechanics and what each tier actually unlocks are on the pricing page, and our honest verdict on whether Pro is worth it is on the Claude review.

#Where the iOS app falls short

Three things, stated plainly. Long documents are painful - the 1M-token context on Sonnet 5 and Opus 5 is available on mobile, but reviewing a long response on a phone screen is worse than on a laptop, and Artifacts in particular want room. Claude Code is a remote control, not a runtime, so the phone is for supervising work, not doing it. And voice mode is still beta, unavailable with Fable, Cowork and Claude Code, and it consumes your usage allocation at the same rate as typing. If you are choosing between platforms, the Android app is at broad feature parity and the comparison is on that page.

#Frequently asked questions