Rollup: The SDK That Turns Your Camera Roll Into Context
Rollup is a software kit for iPhone apps that reads a person’s camera roll, with their permission, to learn what they’re into. It indexes photos, screenshots and videos on the iPhone itself, so a new app can personalize someone’s very first session instead of starting with a generic onboarding quiz. A food app might learn that a user loves matcha, a fitness app that they run on the beach at sunrise, a shopping app that they collect vintage dresses. The photos never leave the phone. Rollup also makes Rollup Passport, an iPhone app that turns what your photos say about you into a profile that ChatGPT and Claude can read.
The quick answer: Rollup’s pitch is that every new user already has years of history in their camera roll, and apps can use it to skip the “cold start.” It’s very new: its SDK went public on GitHub in November 2026, and it requires iOS 26. Its careful privacy design, with on-device indexing and refusals for sensitive topics, is the core of the product. A disclosure: we make Carly, an AI assistant with its own memory, so we compete on the personal-memory side. Everything below comes from Rollup’s site, docs, privacy policy and a founder interview.
Rollup at a glance
Checked against Rollup’s site, documentation and privacy policy on November 12, 2026.
| Rollup | |
|---|---|
| What it is | An iOS SDK that indexes a person’s camera roll on their iPhone for app personalization |
| Consumer app | Rollup Passport, a profile from your photos that ChatGPT and Claude can read |
| Requirements | iPhone on iOS 26 or later; apps can target iOS 16 and offer it on 26 and up |
| Install | Swift Package Manager, CocoaPods, or the expo-rollup module for Expo and React Native |
| Privacy | Photos and the index stay on the phone; no profiles on sensitive topics |
| Company | Kint AI, Inc., a Delaware corporation; co-founded by J Yim and Nora Xiao |
| Best for | Consumer apps that want to personalize a new user’s first session |
What Rollup does
Rollup’s homepage is built around one line: “Skip the cold start.” Its argument, laid out in a November 2026 post, is that a recommendation system sees a new user as an empty row, when that person has spent years developing their tastes. “Then they open the app and get asked to choose between ‘classic,’ ‘bohemian’ and ‘edgy.’”
Rollup’s answer is to read the history already on the phone. Its site lists three uses:
- Cold-start personalization. Onboarding and recommendations for a new user’s first session, from what their photos already show.
- Intent from screenshots. Products, places and events a person saved. Its examples: a screenshot of a crochet beach bag becomes “Flag it when it goes on sale,” and a restaurant screenshot becomes “Book a table for two.”
- Filling the gaps between visits. What someone did since they last opened the app, such as a trip to Zion or a new green tote, so the next visit leads with something relevant.
How it works
The SDK reads small previews of photos, screenshots and videos and works out what they show, where and when they were taken, which places the person visited, and any text in them. It builds that index on the iPhone and keeps it current in the background. Apps then use three calls, per Rollup’s developer summary:
- search runs entirely on the phone with a natural-language query, such as “ramen in Tokyo last spring,” and sends nothing anywhere.
- query answers a question about the person’s life, such as “Where do I eat most?”
- profile fills a JSON schema the app writes, such as favorite cuisine, home city or trips, with the photos behind each field as evidence. A field stays empty “when the person’s life does not say, never a guess.”
For query and profile, an AI agent runs on Rollup’s server, but every tool it uses runs on the iPhone against the person’s own index. Only text results, such as dates, places, labels and text read from images, go to the server, and Rollup says it stores none of it.
Rollup published its own speed test: on one iPhone 16 Pro Max on October 10, 2026, it took 14 seconds to show first results and 4 minutes to index three months of photos, using 0.09 watt-hours of battery.
Privacy by design
Because a camera roll is about as personal as data gets, Rollup’s design leans on limits:
- Photos stay on the phone. Photos, videos and the index never leave the iPhone.
- Two layers of permission. The person turns the feature on in the app and grants Photos access through Apple’s prompt. Before the first query or profile, the app has to tell them what will be sent to Rollup and ask permission, in line with Apple’s App Store guidelines.
- Sensitive topics are off limits. Rollup “does not fill profile fields about health, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or race, politics, or children,” and it marks photos of IDs, health documents and other sensitive content so they stay out of answers.
- Deletion. A reset deletes everything the SDK keeps on the phone and the device’s record on Rollup’s server.
Under its privacy policy, the app developer using Rollup is the one who decides why it’s used, and Rollup acts as a processor on the developer’s instructions.
Rollup Passport
Rollup also offers a consumer app. Rollup Passport, pitched with the line “Your AI should know you by now,” writes what a person loves from their photos into one profile that ChatGPT, Claude and other AI apps can read, with permission. Its examples show the payoff: an AI that knows you as a “Sunrise runner, house-show regular” can suggest a 10K plan built around beach runs, or tell you a house DJ you’d like is playing nearby on Friday.
The company
Rollup is made by Kint AI, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Its co-founders are J Yim and Nora Xiao. According to a Fondo interview with the founders, Rollup started as a personalized shopping app. When other founders asked to buy the technology behind it, the pair pivoted to selling the SDK, and nine days later reported six figures in contracted annual revenue. Those figures are the company’s own.
Rollup’s iOS SDK repository went public on GitHub on November 11, 2026. Developer access is by signing up for an account, and Rollup doesn’t publish pricing.
How Rollup compares
Rollup sits in the personalization and memory space alongside Supermemory, Honcho and Zep, but comes at it from a different angle. Those services learn from conversations and documents an app sends them. Rollup learns from the photos already on a person’s phone, on the device, before the app has any history at all. That makes it a complement to conversation memory more than a replacement.
If you’d rather have an assistant that learns from the things you actually work with, Carly has memory built in: it saves named memory documents that it reads and searches in later conversations, searches a knowledge base of files you upload by meaning, and keeps your to-dos, data tables and CRM in one workspace. It brings that memory into ChatGPT, Claude or a text thread, alongside your email, calendars and phone calls.
Who Rollup suits
Rollup is a good fit if:
- You run a consumer iOS app in food, fitness, travel, shopping, events or pets, where photos reveal real tastes.
- Your onboarding relies on quizzes and new users churn before recommendations get good.
- You want personalization that keeps photos on the device.
- Your users are on iOS 26 or later.
Look elsewhere if:
- Your app is on Android or the web.
- You need memory of conversations rather than of photos.
- You want published pricing and a longer track record before integrating.
FAQ
What is Rollup?
Rollup is an iOS SDK from Kint AI, Inc. that indexes a person’s camera roll on their iPhone, with permission, so apps can search it, ask questions about the person’s life and fill a profile for personalized onboarding and recommendations.
Do Rollup’s photos leave the phone?
No. Photos, videos and the index stay on the iPhone. For questions and profiles, only text derived from the index, such as dates, places and labels, is sent to Rollup’s server, and Rollup says it doesn’t store it.
What is Rollup Passport?
Rollup Passport is an iPhone app that turns what your photos say about your interests into a profile that ChatGPT, Claude and other AI apps can read, with your permission.
What does Rollup need to run?
An iPhone on iOS 26 or later and an app with Apple’s App Attest capability. Apps can target older iOS versions and offer the feature only on iOS 26 and up.
Who founded Rollup?
J Yim and Nora Xiao co-founded Rollup, which is made by Kint AI, Inc.
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