You want to ask a quick question, set a timer, or spin up an image without leaving your iPhone, and you’d rather not download yet another chat app for it. M Assistant tucks all of that into a single Shortcuts tile that talks back in plain language. One heads-up before you start: this one has been retired.
How it works
M Assistant runs entirely inside the Shortcuts app, so there’s no separate program sitting in the background. You type or speak a request, it figures out what you’re asking, and it answers conversationally. Behind the scenes it routes questions to AI services and keeps a short history of the exchange so follow-up replies stay on topic. The same shortcut also handles small chores: a timer here, a reminder there, a quick password lookup when you need one.
Image generation is the part people remember. Ask for a picture and the shortcut sends your prompt to the Pollinations API, which returns a generated image straight onto your screen.
What you need
- An iPhone, iPad, or Mac running iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS Sequoia or later. It leans on newer Shortcuts actions, so older systems will choke on it.
- The Shortcuts app, which Apple ships with the OS. Nothing to install separately.
- An internet connection. The AI replies and the Pollinations image calls both happen over the network, so offline use is off the table.
No API keys, no sign-up, no paid tier. That was a deliberate design choice by the author.
Adding it to your iPhone
- Tap Add Shortcut on this page to open it in the Shortcuts app.
- Review the actions if you’re curious, then scroll to the bottom and tap Add Shortcut to confirm.
- Run it once from the Shortcuts grid to kick off setup.
First run
The first launch walks you through a tiny bit of personalization rather than dropping you cold into a chat box. M Assistant asks for your name so it can address you directly, then offers a short guided tour of what it can do. After that you land at the main prompt. There’s also a /menu command that opens its settings, which is where you adjust the modular options later on.
Using it day-to-day
Treat it like a text box you can ask anything. General questions (“why is the sky blue?”) come back as written answers. Practical requests work too, so you can say you want a ten-minute timer or a reminder and it sets one. For pictures, describe what you want and let the Pollinations call do the rest. You can also feed it content through the Share Sheet from other apps when you want it to act on something you’re already looking at.
A note on its status
M Assistant has been deprecated. The final release on 17 April 2026 stripped out the old promo and closed the book on the project, and the author now points users to a successor shortcut, Vector AI Agent, for continued updates. Version 30 still installs and runs, but no new fixes are coming. If you want something actively maintained, the newer agent is the place to look.
Common questions
Do I really not need an API key for this?
Correct, it ships ready to run with no keys to paste in. The image side uses the free Pollinations endpoint, and the conversational side is wired up out of the box.
Why does it say deprecated?
Its author wrapped up development and moved on to a follow-up project. M Assistant’s last update was version 30, and it now redirects fans toward the Vector AI Agent shortcut for anything new.
Can it generate images entirely on my phone?
Each picture comes from the Pollinations API over the internet, not from on-device processing, so you’ll need a connection. Your prompt stays simple text; the heavy lifting happens server-side.
