One of the best AI video generators is now on the iPhone

• Pika has released an iOS app that enables easy AI video creation from your phone
• The app includes many features, like Pikaffects, PikaScenes, and Pikadditions
• A new mobile feature called PikaMemes will make your face a reaction video GIF

Pika Labs has introduced an iOS app for those who want to play with the AI video creator’s tools while on the go. With a few taps and a little patience, you can produce impossible videos ready to post on social media.

Pika chose to release the app only a few weeks after rolling out the Pika 2.1 model and its many new features and upgrades, including higher quality videos, more lifelike people and animals, and far more realistic movement and physics in general.

Further, if you’re too impatient to wait for Pika 2.1, you can switch to Pika Turbo, a three times faster model that uses far fewer Pika credits to make a video, though it might not produce quite as impressive results.

AI imagination

All of Pika’s popular tools are in the app – including Pikaffects, which creates bizarre transformations that deliver surreal, slightly unhinged visual spectacles. Give that vacation photo a melting Salvador Dali look, turn the elephant at the zoo into the cake, and explode the litter thrown by a careless driver, all from your phone.

You can also add a touch of whimsy or unreality to a video with the Pikadditions tool. You pick a video to alter, then upload another image and describe how you want to infuse your footage with unreal elements. You might add a dragon to your backyard barbecue video or yourself in your favorite movie. As a test, I gave my dog some surprising new friends in our snowy backyard.

If you want a more narrative film, PikaScenes, formerly Scene Ingredients, lets you set the stage for your stories. If you forget a friend’s birthday, you could send a personalized video of an animated scene starring them and a range of appropriate AI-crafted characters, props, and settings from your own photos or by a text prompt.

There’s also a mobile app-exclusive feature called PikaMemes. As the name suggests, you can meld a photo with an emoji or popular meme concept and bring it to life in a short video or GIF. Say you want to share exactly how you feel when overwhelmed on a Monday. Just upload a good selfie or headshot and match it to the right mood; you won’t need words to share how you feel.

All of these tools on a mobile app really encourage a lot of playing around. To take advantage of this, you’ll need more than 150 tokens a month, which are provided for free, as the videos can range from five tokens for a Turbo model basic video to 60 credits for using Pika 2.1 and the most complex features. You can sign up for the Basic plan at $8 per month and get 700 credits, or the Standard plan for $28 and 2,300 credits.

Still, if you want to really stand out on TikTok or Instagram or just feel like really hammering home how much heat you’re feeling, it’s probably going to be hard to resist giving it a shot.

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Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for TechRadar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He’s since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he’s continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.