Story of Us: AI StorytellerInteractive AI bedtime stories for iPhone & iPad
Take a photo and step inside your own picture book. Apple Intelligence writes the story, Image Playground draws you into every scene, and each choice you make opens a new chapter.
Every child has wished they could climb inside a storybook. Story of Us makes that wish come true: the face on every page is yours, the friends are your family, the places are the ones you choose, and nobody, not even the author, knows how it ends until you decide.
Four chapters, from a photo to a picture book you'll want to read again tomorrow night.
Snap a photo of yourself, your child, a grandparent or a friend, and they become a story character. Keep favourites at the top, add the whole family, or bring along an animal sidekick like Decky the Duck, Shelly the Snail, Lila the Panda or Dino the T-Rex.
Choose a genre, a mood, a place and a reading level, then pick your favourite of three opening lines that Apple Intelligence writes for you. Romance at Jimbaran Bay, an adventure in Gangnam, a mystery in a bamboo grove: you set the stage.
At the end of every chapter the story stops and asks you: what happens next? Tap a choice and Apple Intelligence writes the next chapter around it, while Image Playground illustrates your characters in the scene. No typing needed, just imagination.
Finished stories turn into illustrated books with page-turning chapters. They wait in your personal library, sync to your other Apple devices through iCloud, and export as PDF books to print, share with grandparents or keep forever.
Image Playground turns each character photo into an illustration that fits the chapter: glowing temple arches, neon streets, a sunflower garden. Pick the look you like best.
Make the same choices you would in the app: a hero, a sidekick, a genre, a mood and a place. Then pick an opening and decide what happens next.
This page strings together a few hand-written lines to show how it works. In the app, Apple Intelligence writes a brand-new story every time, on your device.
Story of Us is built on Apple's on-device Foundation Models, the large language model at the heart of Apple Intelligence. Stories are written on your iPhone or iPad, not on a server, so your photos and your child's adventures stay with you.
Read on iPhone at bedtime, on iPad on the sofa, or unfold iPhone Duo into a two-page book: the story on one side, what happens next on the other.
Story of Us: AI Storyteller is an interactive storytelling app for iPhone and iPad that makes you the hero of your own illustrated story. You take a photo to create a character, choose a genre, mood, location and opening line, and Apple Intelligence writes the story on your device while Image Playground illustrates your characters in each scene. At the end of every chapter you choose what happens next. Stories are saved in a personal library, sync through iCloud and export as PDF books, and can be written in 9 languages. It needs no internet connection for writing stories, collects no data and costs $4.99 once, with no subscription or in-app purchases.
| Story of Us | Typical cloud app | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the story is written | On your iPhone or iPad | On remote servers |
| Internet | Not needed | Required |
| Your photos | Stay on your device | Often uploaded |
| Account | None | Usually required |
| Price | $4.99 once | Often a subscription or credits |
"Typical cloud app" describes the common pattern for AI story generators that run on servers; individual apps vary.
Story of Us is an interactive AI storytelling app for iPhone and iPad. You take a photo to become the main character, choose a genre, mood and place, and Apple Intelligence writes a personalised story while Image Playground illustrates it. You choose what happens next at the end of every chapter.
You create a character from a photo, and Image Playground draws that person into the story’s illustrations in 3D Animation, 2D Illustration or Sketch style. You can add family and friends as more characters, or bring an animal sidekick such as Decky the Duck, Shelly the Snail, Lila the Panda or Dino the T-Rex.
No. Stories are written by Apple Intelligence on your device using Apple’s Foundation Models framework, so you can create and read stories offline, for example on a plane or a road trip.
Story of Us collects no data at all: no accounts, no analytics, no ads, no tracking and no location. Character photos and stories stay on your device, and iCloud sync goes through your own iCloud account, which ARRcade cannot access. If you choose an external image model inside Image Playground, that request is handled by that provider.
An iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later that supports Apple Intelligence and Image Playground, with Apple Intelligence turned on. That includes iPhone 15 Pro and newer iPhone models that support Apple Intelligence, and iPads with an M1 chip or later or A17 Pro. It also supports iPhone Duo.
Story of Us costs $4.99 once on the App Store. There is no subscription, no in-app purchases, no credits and no ads, so you can create as many stories as you like.
Stories can be generated in 9 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish and Chinese (Simplified).
Yes. It is rated 4+ and was made for young readers, families and anyone who loves seeing themselves in a story. You can set a reading level, no typing is needed, and there are no ads, chats or social features.
Yes. Every story is saved in your personal story library with its illustrations, opens as a page-turning book, syncs across your Apple devices through iCloud and can be exported as a PDF book to print or share.
Most AI story generators send your prompts and photos to servers and charge a subscription or credits. Story of Us writes stories with Apple Intelligence on your own iPhone or iPad, works without internet, needs no account and costs $4.99 once.
Story of Us: AI Storyteller is built entirely on Apple Intelligence: Apple’s on-device Foundation Models write interactive stories and Image Playground illustrates them with your own characters. It is one of the few story apps that runs fully on device.
Anand Raj R, an independent developer who publishes apps as ARRcade. Story of Us was first released in September 2025.
Every night, a new adventure, and you're the hero of all of them.
$4.99 once, no subscription · iPhone and iPad · Requires iOS 26 or later with Apple Intelligence
