Claude on your phone (yes, there's an app).

The first few weeks I used Claude, I only used it at my desk. It was a tab I opened on my laptop, typed something into, got something useful back, and then closed. It didn't occur to me to check whether there was a phone app.

There is. It's free. And it's the same Claude.

Getting it

Open the App Store on your iPhone, search for "Claude", and download the app by Anthropic. Sign in with the same account you use on claude.ai. That's it. No setup, no settings to fiddle with, no tutorial to sit through.

If you're on Android, it's the same story in the Google Play Store. Same app, same Claude, same account.

When you'd actually use it

The phone app isn't better than the desktop version. It's just closer. Here's when I reach for it:

In a shop. I was buying a moisturiser for my partner last month and couldn't remember which ingredients she's allergic to. I opened Claude and typed:

Can you tell me what these ingredients are? [pasted the label]. My partner is allergic to lanolin and anything coconut-derived. Is this safe?

Thirty seconds. Done. No googling each ingredient one by one.

Composing a message you want to get right. You know the ones. A reply to a difficult text. A message to a friend going through something hard. I'll type the gist of what I want to say and ask Claude to help me say it better.

I need to reply to my friend Sarah. Her mum just passed away and I don't know what to say. I want to be warm and real, not generic. We've been friends for 20 years.

It won't write the perfect message. But it'll give you a starting point that's better than staring at a blank screen for ten minutes.

Thinking out loud on a walk. This is my favourite. I'll be walking and turning something over in my head, a decision, a project, a thing I can't quite articulate. I pull out my phone and just type whatever I'm thinking. It doesn't need to be coherent.

I'm trying to figure out whether to take on this freelance project. It pays well but the timeline is tight and I'm already stretched. Help me think through this.

Claude is a surprisingly good thinking partner when you're on the move.

One tip

The phone app remembers your conversations, so you can start something on your phone and pick it up on your laptop later. Useful when you begin a thought on the bus and want to finish it properly at your desk.

That's genuinely it

If you've used Claude on a computer, you already know how to use it on your phone. Same box, same conversation, same Claude. Just smaller and always in your pocket.