What to look for in an AI math tutor app for iPad

Start with the kind of help you want

Some apps show you a full solution to the problem. Others help with the steps you write yourself. Both have a use. A full worked solution helps when you're studying a method or checking an answer key, and help on your own steps keeps the thinking with you.

Research suggests the difference matters for exams. In a 2025 PNAS study, high school students who practiced with a ChatGPT-style chat scored 17% lower on a later exam than students with no AI, while students whose tutor was built to give hints scored about the same as the no-AI group. The guide to homework help that gives hints instead of answers covers that research.

The main kinds of apps

Facts and prices below were checked on 2026-10-30 and change often, so confirm them on each app's own site.

Solvers

Photomath scans a problem with the camera, including neatly handwritten ones, or takes it from a calculator keyboard, then shows a step-by-step solution, sometimes with more than one method. Photomath Plus adds animated tutorials, deeper explanations and contextual hints, according to Google's Photomath help center. Pick a solver when you want to see how a problem is done from start to finish. See alai vs Photomath.

Chat tutors

ChatGPT study mode guides you with questions, explains ideas step by step and checks your understanding. You can upload a photo of a problem or your notes. OpenAI says it can make mistakes and may sometimes give a direct answer, and that you can ask for hints instead.

Khanmigo, from Khan Academy, guides learners to find the answer themselves and tutors on Khan Academy's exercises, videos and articles. It takes speech and reads its replies aloud. On the web, its Tutor Me activity accepts a photo of a handwritten problem to check your steps.

Pick a chat tutor when you want to talk a topic through or ask follow-up questions in many subjects. See alai vs ChatGPT study mode and alai vs Khanmigo.

Note apps with math features

Apple Math Notes, in the Calculator and Notes apps, solves an expression when you write an equals sign after it. It handles variables and graphs, and marks what it can't read or solve with dotted lines. A setting lets you insert results, show them as suggestions, or turn them off.

Goodnotes Math Assist is off by default. Once it's on, an equation you write with an equals sign glows blue, and tapping it lets you pick a solving strategy and see the answer in handwriting. Goodnotes says lines can be underlined as incorrect, and that misread handwriting is the most common cause of a wrong underline. Goodnotes AI for Math adds Solve, for full solutions, and Teach Me, for hints and questions.

Pick a notes feature when you want answers to appear right in the notes you already keep. See alai vs Apple Math Notes and alai vs Goodnotes Math Assist.

Step-checking tutors

alai is an iPad and web notes app with Ally, an adaptive AI tutor that teaches alongside you. In Homework help, Ally reads the page after you pause. At the first wrong step, Ally highlights it and asks a short question about it, and Ally is set up not to say the corrected step or the final answer while you work. Pick a step-checking tutor when you want to work your own homework by hand and get help at the step where it went wrong. How alai works walks through a session, and the roundup of AI tutor apps that read your handwriting compares alai with Amend, Elara, EulerPad and others.

What to check before you choose

How it reads your work

Apps take in math in three ways: you write it with Apple Pencil, you photograph it, or you type it. Live handwriting works where you already write. Photos work well for paper homework. Typing works everywhere but is slow for math.

Every app here can misread messy handwriting, so look for a way to see and fix what it read. Math Notes shows what it understood when you tap the equals sign, Goodnotes lets you edit the LaTeX it recognized, and alai's Ally asks you to rewrite a step that's hard to read.

Whether it checks your steps or gives the answer

This is the biggest difference between these apps. Photomath shows its own full solution. Math Notes and Math Assist compute answers for what you write. Study mode and Khanmigo guide with questions. alai judges each line you write and asks about the first wrong one. If you want to work without answers appearing, Math Notes has a setting to turn results off.

Apple Pencil

Math Notes, Goodnotes and alai read what you write with Apple Pencil, so you write on the page as you would on paper. Camera and chat apps work without a Pencil, which helps when your homework is on paper.

Voice

Khanmigo turns your speech into text and reads its replies aloud. ChatGPT study mode works with voice dictation where it's available. Photomath Plus's animated tutorials have a voice-over. In alai, you press and hold Hold to talk to ask a question, and Ally answers out loud with a caption.

Memory

Ask what the app remembers between sessions and whether you can see and delete it. With memory on, ChatGPT may use saved memories or past chats to shape study mode. Khanmigo keeps your chat history, and a parent can see a child's. alai keeps a learning history of your mistakes, hints and fixes as short codes, never your handwriting, so Ally can bring up a slip you've made before. You can clear it with Reset Ally's memory. The guide to adaptive AI tutors covers what a tutor should remember and what the research says.

Privacy for students

Check the minimum age, whether a parent has to sign up, what's stored, and whether your work trains AI models. On 2026-10-30:

• Photomath's terms are for people 13 and older.
• OpenAI's terms require users to be at least 13, with a parent's permission under 18.
• Khanmigo's learner plans are for adults in the US, and anyone under 18 gets access through a parent or a partnered school district. Khan Academy says images uploaded to Khanmigo aren't stored on its servers.
• Goodnotes' terms don't let anyone under 16 create a profile, though a parent can create an account for a child.
• alai is for anyone 13 and older in the US, and for children under 13 through a parent or guardian. Its privacy policy says it doesn't use your content to train AI models and doesn't store the page snapshots Ally checks or recordings of your voice.

Price

Math Notes is part of iPadOS. Photomath, ChatGPT and Goodnotes have free plans with paid upgrades: ChatGPT's paid plans start at $8 a month, and Goodnotes' Teach Me and Solve need a paid subscription, starting with Essential at $11.99 a year. Khanmigo costs $4 a month for learners. alai has a free plan, and its paid plans start at $2.99 a month. Pro, with the AI note tools and 10 hours of Ally a month per learner, is $14.99 a month for the first learner.

Where alai fits

alai is a good fit if you do math by hand on iPad and want a tutor to follow each step. It's for students 13 and older in the US, and younger children through a parent. The iPad app needs iPadOS 26 or later, and alai works on the web too. Ally tutors math, physics, chemistry and Spanish, and Spanish is the newest of the four.