Originally posted on LinkedIn.
Spent the last two weeks building my own AI agent for iPhone. Siri is good but I was curious — how close to Siri’s features could I get? And could I build something better?
Spoiler: matched some things, didn’t match others. Apple’s sandbox is the main limitation.
What it can do
- Voice support
- Interacts with clipboard / music / photos / contacts / weather / location / shortcuts
- Opens links in Safari, opens any app
- Has on-device memory about the user
- Custom tool creation
- And yes, it can turn the flashlight on/off
What it can’t do
- Read notes or emails
- Activate with voice like “Hey Siri”
- Deep system-level access
But here’s where it gets interesting
I ask the agent to send a message to Tomas. It doesn’t have direct messaging access, so it finds a workaround:
- Creates the message text
- Finds Tomas in my contacts
- Opens the message thread with Tomas
- Pastes text from clipboard
I just press send.
That’s the thing about agents — constrain them enough and they get creative. The sandbox becomes a puzzle, not a wall.
Now I’m itching to see how far I can push this on iPhone — and to build the same thing for Android.