I’m seeing writes work in iOS and fail on Android, and they are not even executed. OpenAI support bot states that writes are not enabled on any platform, but i don’t know if that’s the latest. Can someone confirm status?
Bot overlord says: “If you are seeing write actions working on iOS, this is unexpected and not documented as intended behavior; the documented, supported platform for MCP tool writes is web only (not mobile)—which explains blocked writes on Android and web, but not on iOS. This likely reflects either an early/partial rollout or a temporary exception, not a supported configuration. Official policy is that MCP write actions are not supported on either mobile platform at this stage, only on web.”
Thanks for sharing this update, Karson! I see a few important points here worth discussing:
Writes working on iOS but not Android:
That’s really interesting. It suggests there might be some sort of early or partial rollout, or possibly an unintended behavior specific to iOS. Definitely something developers need to keep an eye on.
Official policy (web only):
It’s good to have clarity from OpenAI that MCP write actions are officially supported only on web. That explains why Android sees blocked writes and why relying on mobile for production writes is risky.
Support bot messages vs actual behavior:
The discrepancy between what the support bot says and the observed behavior on iOS highlights a common issue in SDK rollouts—sometimes things work “by accident” before they are officially documented. This is helpful to know for debugging and planning development.
Overall, it seems like anyone looking to implement write actions in the ChatGPT SDK should stick to web for now, and treat iOS behavior as experimental at best. Curious if anyone has tested on iPad or other iOS versions and seen similar write capability?
Great breakdown
I agree—this really looks like a partial or unintended rollout rather than a supported feature. The iOS vs Android difference is especially telling and reinforces why relying on undocumented behavior can be risky in production.
Good point about the support bot vs real-world behavior too. That mismatch often creates confusion for devs, so calling it out is helpful. Until there’s clear documentation or an official announcement, web-only writes seem like the safest path.
Would also be interesting to see if this behavior is consistent across different iOS versions or devices, or if it’s tied to a specific app build.
Yeah, this lines up with what we’ve seen in other SDK rollouts. When something works on one platform but is blocked on another, it usually means it’s not officially enabled yet.
The web-only policy makes sense in that context, and the iOS behavior definitely feels more experimental than intentional. Until OpenAI documents mobile write support clearly, treating anything outside web as unstable is probably the safest approach.
If anyone has tested this on iPadOS or older iOS builds, real-world data there would be super useful.
Writes working on iOS but not Android:
Official policy (web only):
Support bot messages vs actual behavior: