Apple Intelligence in a quote app: what Quill does with it

The risk with AI in a quote app

Quote apps already have a sourcing problem, and AI could make it far worse. A language model will happily write a sentence in the voice of Seneca and put his name under it. It'll sound right and be fake. Quill's historic lines are checked word for word against public-domain books, so we built its AI features to keep clear of that.

The rule is that the model never writes a line and attributes it to a real person. It helps you write your own, it helps you find real lines, and it explains old language.

Make it a line

You type a rough thought, however messy. Maybe it's a sentence about the meeting you've been dreading since Thursday. The model offers a few short lines in your words, and you pick one, change it or throw them all away. What you keep is your own line, and it's never presented as something an old philosopher said.

Find a line

Library search works if you know the word you want. Most people on a bad day don't. Find a line lets you describe what's happening in plain language, such as “I got passed over and I have to congratulate them tomorrow”. The model works out what you're describing, and Quill returns real lines from its library. It doesn't compose new quotes here. Whatever you get has the same label and source it would have anywhere else in the app.

What this means

A line from the 1600s or a translation from the 1800s can be hard going. Some of the words have shifted, and some of the references assume you know your Roman history. What this means gives you a plain explanation of a historic line, and it applies only to those sourced lines, because there's an actual author and text to explain.

An explanation from a language model can get things wrong, so treat it as a helpful first reading. Read in Context is where you can check it, since that shows you the passage the line came from.

What device you need

These three features run on your iPhone with Apple Foundation Models, so they need an Apple Intelligence device with Apple Intelligence turned on. On other iPhones the AI parts aren't available. The rest of Quill works without them: the lines, the widgets, My Lines, Read in Context, Slow Read and the Morning Line notification all carry on as normal.

Where your words go

What you type into these features is processed on your iPhone. AI inputs stay on the phone and are never sent, and that goes for what you write in My Lines, your moods and your Journal moments too.

To be exact about the rest of the app: Quill does use Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics, to count how the app is used and to report crashes. It runs without an ad identifier, and it doesn't follow you across other apps. Line updates download from Apple's CloudKit public database. The full detail is in the privacy policy.