The iPhone app uses AI to analyse meal photos, identify individual ingredients and estimate their weights, calories and macronutrients, addressing a gap the founder encountered with existing calorie-tracking tools.
Saffron AI, a new iPhone calorie-tracking app designed around Middle Eastern cuisine, has launched on Apple’s App Store, offering users a way to track meals through photos, voice recordings or text in Arabic and English.
The idea came from the founder’s own experience trying to track calories while eating traditional dishes such as mansaf, machboos and stuffed vine leaves. Existing calorie trackers struggled to recognise regional foods and home-cooked meals, where ingredients and preparation methods can vary between households.
Saffron AI aims to address this by allowing users to photograph a meal and receive an ingredient-by-ingredient breakdown, including estimated weights, calories and macronutrients. Users can then edit individual ingredients and quantities, with the overall nutritional totals updating accordingly.
The app also supports voice logging in Arabic and English, allowing users to describe meals rather than enter them manually. Its interface is fully available in both languages, including right-to-left support for Arabic.
Beyond meal tracking, Saffron AI includes a food diary with calorie and macronutrient targets, streaks and badges, private groups with chat, weight and progress tracking, meal planning and workout features. Users can also optionally sync their data with Apple Health.
The app became available on the App Store on 11 September 2026. An Android version is planned, although no release date has been announced.
Saffron AI Pro is priced at $12.99 per month or $89.99 annually on the US App Store, with a one-week free trial for the annual plan. Prices may vary in other markets.
The company notes that its nutritional calculations are estimates and are not intended as medical advice.
The app is available for iPhone through the Apple App Store
