DeepSeek Dethrones ChatGPT on Apple App Store in the US: All You Need to Know
The internet has been abuzz about DeepSeek the entire weekend, thanks to its open-sourced model. Today, a report revealed that the Chinese startup’s AI assistant has overtaken ChatGPT to become the top-rated free app on Apple’s App Store in the US.
According to an app data research firm firm Sensor Tower, “The AI app maintaining a content rating of ’12+’. In US, ‘DeepSeek – AI Assistant’ ranked 1st on the ‘Top Free iPhone Apps’ chart in the ‘Productivity’ category.“
What is DeepSeek and What Does it Offer?
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI subsidiary of High-Flyer Capital Management and has quickly become the talk of the town in Silicon Valley. High-Flyer, initially launched in 2015 as a quantitative analysis firm, expanded into artificial intelligence with DeepSeek. The company recently gained attention for releasing DeepSeek-R1, a groundbreaking large language model (LLM) that showcases advanced reasoning capabilities.
Similar to OpenAI’s top-performing o1 model. It solves complex problems through a step-by-step “chain of thought” process, taking seconds or minutes to provide thoughtful and accurate responses.
What sets DeepSeek-R1 apart is its impressive performance on third-party benchmarks, where it matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s o1 model. However, the main highlight is that DeepSeek achieved this at a fraction of the cost, reportedly around $5 million, using far fewer GPUs. This is particularly notable given the strict US embargo on GPU exports to China. With its combination of cost-efficiency, technical prowess, and high benchmark scores, DeepSeek-R1 has significantly impacted industry leaders and solidified its position as a serious competitor in AI.
How DeepSeek Dethroned ChatGPT?
DeepSeek’s rise to the top can be attributed to its open-source approach, which contrasts with OpenAI’s subscription-based o1 model. While o1 is only accessible to paying ChatGPT Plus ($20/month) and Pro ($200/month) users, DeepSeek-R1 is freely available, making it accessible to a much wider audience. Its open-source nature has also sparked rapid innovation, with developers fine-tuning and training model variations for specific tasks, such as optimizing it for mobile devices or integrating it with other open-source tools. This flexibility has made DeepSeek-R1 incredibly versatile.
Additionally, DeepSeek’s API costs are over 90% lower than OpenAI’s equivalent, boosting its appeal among developers and businesses. The availability of a free website and mobile app powered by the R1 model—complete with web search integration—has set it apart for general users. This feature, unavailable on OpenAI’s most advanced models, has been a game-changer, providing users with a more powerful and connected experience. These factors have helped DeepSeek rapidly dethrone ChatGPT on platforms like the Apple App Store and within the developer community.
DeepSeek-R1 Vs OpenAI’s o1
| Feature/Aspect | DeepSeek-R1 | OpenAI’s o1 |
| Model Type | Open-source LLM | Proprietary LLM |
| Parameters | 671 billion (37 billion active at once) | Not specified |
| Cost (Input Tokens) | $0.55 per million | $15.00 per million |
| Cost (Output Tokens) | $2.19 per million | $60.00 per million |
| Performance Benchmarks | Outperformed o1 in 5 of 11 benchmarks | Strong performance in various tasks |
What Users Are Saying About DeepSeek-R1
The launch of DeepSeek-R1 has created such a buzz that major players like OpenAI have announced their upcoming o3 Mini model will be free for all ChatGPT users. Google has also recently released its Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental Model, which is currently free in its beta phase.
These developments, particularly in the reasoning AI space, highlight one thing: users are the ultimate winners of this fierce competition.