RPLY Review: A Strong Concept, But the AI Isn’t There Yet

I’m always on the hunt for tools that help me work smarter, communicate better, and just make life easier. So when I heard about RPLY—an app that acts as an iMessage inbox assistant, automatically organizing my texts and even drafting responses for me—I was intrigued.

Because, look, I get a lot of messages. Between work, personal projects, and just staying in touch with people, my inbox is a complete mess. Sometimes I forget to reply. Sometimes I put off responding because I don’t know what to say. And sometimes I just need to clear out my inbox so I can focus. So the idea of an app that helps me categorize my messages, generate responses, and reach inbox zero faster? That’s something I’d love.

But after trying it out, I found myself really liking the concept—but feeling like the AI just isn’t there yet. There’s potential here, but the execution isn’t quite working for me.

First Impressions: A Super Clean UI, But Some Immediate Friction

I’ll give it this—RPLY looks great. The UI is clean, modern, and smooth. I had no trouble navigating the app, and everything felt polished. The animations were great, the design is sleek, it really got my hyped up on the experience I was about to have.

Even the experience of seeing the AI understanding my messages, learning common phrases that I apparently text to people. It was a really well thought out design in terms of the user experience and my visual interaction with the application.

But right away, once permissions started to pop up, I hit a couple of red flags:

Sorry not sorry, I love Spotify and it will always live on my computer rent free.

It auto-launches on login. I personally don’t like when apps do this. Let me decide if I want it to open every time my Mac boots up.

It needs full disk access. To function properly, RPLY asks for a ton of permissions—access to my contacts, the ability to read and send iMessages, and automation privileges on my Mac. That’s… a lot. I get why it needs those things, but it still felt a little intrusive, and I would have liked more transparency about how my data is handled.

At this point, I wasn’t fully sold, but I moved forward because I really wanted to see how well it worked.

Categorization: A Well-Intentioned Feature That Doesn’t Quite Work for Me

One of RPLY’s key features is categorizing your inbox—essentially, sorting your conversations into buckets so you can navigate them more easily.

In theory? Brilliant.

In practice? It completely missed the mark for me.

Here’s the thing—my messages aren’t easy to categorize.

I’m not just working on one thing with a single focus. I’m involved in a ton of different efforts simultaneously:

• I’m working on stuff with Aloa
• I’m running Bracketology
• I’m building Jewish community initiatives
• I’m constantly connecting people
• I have personal conversations with family and friends

My inbox is chaos. I jump from one thing to another constantly, and my conversations evolve based on what’s happening in the moment. So when RPLY started categorizing my texts, the results didn’t really help me.

✔️ Some categories made sense—like recognizing that I talk a lot about event planning.

❌ But a lot of them were irrelevant. When I refreshed, it created a category for “Jackie’s 30th Birthday.” (Happy 30th Jackie 😊) That’s great for now, but after her birthday? That category becomes meaningless.

❌ Some categories were just bizarre. Things like “Team Welfare” or “Brand Marketing Jazz” that didn’t seem tied to any recurring conversations I actually have.

And the biggest issue? I didn’t see how these categories actually helped me. My texts don’t work like email, where sorting messages into folders makes sense. Conversations are fluid, evolving, and context-dependent. I don’t need a category for one-off discussions that won’t be relevant in a week.

If categorization is going to work, it needs to be dynamic—adapting as my conversations shift, not locking messages into arbitrary buckets that don’t reflect how I actually communicate.

AI Replies: Just Not There Yet

The core promise of RPLY is that it reads your messages and suggests quick replies. The idea? Save time, avoid mental effort, and clear out messages effortlessly.

Again, love the concept.

But the AI replies? They’re just not something I would trust.

✔️ It integrates directly into iMessage, which is smooth.

✔️ You can generate and send replies in one click, which is nice.

❌ The responses don’t sound like me. The AI kept adding extra letters—"yoooo" with four o’s, “hypedddd” with extra d’s. That’s just… not how I text.

❌ It struggles with context. For example, a friend sent me a message about FaceTiming, and the AI responded with “ah.” That’s not even a reply—it’s just an awkward reaction.

❌ It just doesn’t feel reliable. The auto-responses feel random, and I’d still have to proofread everything before sending, which means it’s actually faster to just type my own responses.

If this is going to be a true inbox assistant, the AI needs to:

• Match my actual tone (no extra letters, no weird phrasing).
• Understand the intent of messages instead of just reacting.
• Let me train it with common phrases so it actually reflects how I communicate.

Right now, I don’t trust the AI to respond for me. If anything, it slows me down because I have to double-check and edit its suggestions.

The Coolest Part? The Metrics.

Now, one feature I genuinely loved was the analytics:

✔️ It tracks who I reply to the fastest.

✔️ It identifies who I tend to ghost (which is… eye-opening).

✔️ It shows my weekly texting habits.

I didn’t realize how differently I interact with certain people. Seeing this data on paper made me more aware of how I communicate, and honestly, I could see this helping me be more intentional about my responses.

It’d be even better if the app used these insights to improve its functionality. Like, if it notices I’m slow to respond to certain people, maybe it could prioritize those messages for me. Right now, it’s cool info, but it doesn’t really help me manage my inbox.

Final Verdict: A Great Idea, But It’s Not There Yet

I love the idea of RPLY—a tool that helps me clean out my inbox, respond faster, and categorize my conversations. But the AI needs a lot of improvement before I’d actually use it every day.

The biggest issues?

🔹 Categorization feels too rigid. My conversations aren’t static, and the categories don’t help me manage my inbox.

🔹 AI replies don’t sound like me. If I have to rewrite every response, it’s not saving me time.

🔹 Privacy concerns. If I’m giving an app full access to my iMessages, I need more transparency on security.

Would I use it right now? No.

Would I keep an eye on it? Absolutely.

If they improve the AI’s tone, categorization, and functionality, this could be an incredible tool for anyone who’s drowning in text messages. I want this to work. It’s just not quite ready yet.

✅ Pros

✔️ Clean UI—looks and feels great

✔️ Fast auto-replies—integrates smoothly with iMessage

✔️ Interesting texting insights—fun to see how I interact with others

❌ Cons

❌ AI replies feel unnatural—not how I actually text

❌ Categorization doesn’t really help me

❌ Privacy concerns—requires full iMessage access

⭐ Overall Rating: 3/5

I love the idea, but it needs refinement. If they improve the AI and categorization, this could be a game-changer.