Foundation Models unavailable for millions of users due to device language restriction - Need per-app language override

Question

Created 3w

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Participants 2

Hi everyone,

I'm developing an iOS app using Foundation Models and I've hit a critical limitation that I believe affects many developers and millions of users.

The Issue

Foundation Models requires the device system language to be one of the supported languages. If a user has their device set to an unsupported language (Catalan, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Hungarian, Greek, Romanian, and many others), SystemLanguageModel.isSupported returns false and the framework is completely unavailable.

Why This Is Problematic

Scenario: A Catalan user has their iPhone in Catalan (native language). They want to use an AI chat app in Spanish or English (languages they speak fluently).

Current situation:

❌ Foundation Models: Completely unavailable
✅ OpenAI GPT-4: Works perfectly
✅ Anthropic Claude: Works perfectly
✅ Any cloud-based AI: Works perfectly

The user must choose between:

Keep device in Catalan → Cannot use Foundation Models at all
Change entire device to Spanish → Can use Foundation Models but terrible UX

Impact

This affects:

Millions of users in regions where unsupported languages are official
Multilingual users who prefer their device in their native language but can comfortably interact with AI in English/Spanish
Developers who cannot deploy Foundation Models-based apps in these markets
Privacy-conscious users who are ironically forced to use cloud AI instead of on-device AI

What We Need

One of these solutions would solve the problem:

Option 1: Per-app language override (preferred) // Proposed API let session = try await LanguageModelSession(preferredLanguage: "es-ES")

Option 2: Faster rollout of additional languages (particularly EU languages)

Option 3: Allow fallback to user-selected supported language when system language is unsupported

Technical Details

Current behavior: // Device in Catalan let isAvailable = SystemLanguageModel.isSupported
// Returns false // No way to override or specify alternative language

Why This Matters

Apple Intelligence and Foundation Models are amazing for privacy and performance. But this language restriction makes the most privacy-focused AI solution less accessible than cloud alternatives. This seems contrary to Apple's values of accessibility and user choice.

Questions for the Community

Has anyone else encountered this limitation?
Are there any workarounds I'm missing?
Has anyone successfully filed feedback about this?(Please share FB number so we can reference it)
Are there any sessions or labs where this has been discussed?

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear if others are facing this and how you're handling it.

Boost

Answer 1

MB-Researcher OP

2w

Thanks for this post! This is an issue we care a lot about... so while I don't have an ideal solution for you, I can fill in some details as well as what workarounds we have so far:

1. Model availability

The core issue is that Foundation Models framework is calling into the on-device foundation model from Apple Intelligence. The model is managed by the operating system, and is only available if the user has chosen to turn on Apple Intelligence —on a compatible device. That's our key blocker from the framework standpoint. If the model is "unavailable" it isn't even downloaded or present on the device.

2. Language expansion progress

I 100% hear you on language expansion speed, but we are making progress! Just a few days ago we added Apple Intelligence support for 8 new languages: Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.

3. User workaround: set Siri language

Not that this helps tremendously, but Apple Intelligence is actually based on Siri language settings, not the system language setting. So for Catalan (or other unsupported language) users, go in Settings app > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Language, and set Language to one of the supported languages from this article. Obviously this only helps users who are fluent in multiple languages.

4. Framework workarounds

Foundation Models framework can't work if there's no model on-device, but once model availability is unlocked, we actually do have some language workarounds baked-in to support you. For example, calling supportslocale(_:) will check against the user's language settings, and this takes in account if the user has set your app setting to a different language. This function will return true if we can support a close language. So if the user has set your app to Catalan, supportslocale(_:) will return true since we can support Spanish, which is fairly close. More details in this article: Support languages and locales with Foundation Models

This an area we're actively working to improve, so please keep the feedback reports coming with ideas or suggestions. Thanks!

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