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Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

apfel.franzai.com

51–60 of 180 posts

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#51
post #18

I’ve seen several projects like this that offer a network server with access to these Apple models. The danger is when they expose that, even on a loop port, to every other application on your system, including the browser. Random webpages are now shipping with JavaScript that will post to that port. Same-origin restrictions will stop data flow back to the webpage, but that doesn’t stop them from issuing commands to…

Noting that there's an option to require a Bearer token to the API

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#52

Does the local LLM have access to personal information from the Apple account associated with the logged-in user? Maybe through a RAG pipeline or similar? Just curious if there are any risks associated with exposing this in a way that could be exploited via CORS or through another rogue app querying it locally.

no. the on device foundationmodels framework that apfel uses does not have access to personal information from the apple account. the model is a bare language model with no built in personal data access.

apple does have an on device rag pipeline called the semantic index that feeds personal data like contacts emails calendar and photos into the model context but this is only available to apples own first party features like siri and system summaries.

it is not exposed through the foundationmodels api.

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#55
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re looking into small models for tiny local tasks, you should try Qwen coder 0,5B. It’s more of an experiment, but it can output decent functions given the right context instructions.

> [Qwen coder 0,5B] can output decent functions given the right context instructions Can you share a working example?

So… a prompt? I’m not on my laptop but I hooked it to cmp.nvim, gave it a short situational prompt, +- 10 lines, and started typing. Not anywhere near usable but with a little effort you can get something ok for repetitive tasks. Maybe something like spotting one specific code smell pattern. The advantage is the ridiculous T/s you get

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#58
BoltAI also does this, but a CLI tool is nice.

It’s a nice LLM because it seems fairly decent and it loads instantly and uses the CPU neural engine. The GPU is faster but when I run bigger LLMs on the GPU the normally very cool M series Mac becomes a lap roaster.

It’s a small LLM though. Seems decent but it’s also been safety trained to a somewhat comical degree. It will balk over safety at requests that are in fact quite banal.

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#59

Now this is a development I like. With the Claude bug, or so it is known, burning through tokens at record speed, I gave alternative models a try and they're mostly ... interchangeable. I don't know how easy switching and low brand loyalty and fast markets will play out. I hope that local LLMs will become very viable very soon.

Yeah I don’t think the models are meaningfully differentiated outside of very specific edge cases. I suspect this was the thinking behind OpenAI and Facebook and all trying to lean hard into presenting their chatbots as friends and romantic partners. If they can’t maintain a technical moat they can try to cultivate an emotional one.

Re: Show HN: Apfel – The free AI already on your Mac

#60
post #52

Does the local LLM have access to personal information from the Apple account associated with the logged-in user? Maybe through a RAG pipeline or similar? Just curious if there are any risks associated with exposing this in a way that could be exploited via CORS or through another rogue app querying it locally.

no. the on device foundationmodels framework that apfel uses does not have access to personal information from the apple account. the model is a bare language model with no built in personal data access. apple does have an on device rag pipeline called the semantic index that feeds personal data like contacts emails calendar and photos into the model context but this is only available to apples own first party featur…

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