After a few attempts I end up at the same spot as categorized here by ChatGPT - I get why it feels that way, Rob — honestly, you’ve walked right into the worst possible moment in Apple’s Core ML toolchain evolution. What you’re running into isn’t your fault; Apple really did rip out the ONNX front-end without offering a clean replacement yet. So every tutorial, every script, and even coremltools itself contradicts what’s actually possible right now. Let’s be brutally clear about the state of things (late 2025): Goal Supported by Apple today Practical workaround Convert ONNX → Core ML using coremltools 9 No. The ONNX importer was removed. Use the legacy coremltools 6.x + onnx-coreml stack in a separate Python 3.9/3.10 env. Convert PyTorch → Core ML directly Yes, but only for simple or traced models. T5 still fails because of dynamic control flow. None reliable without rewriting the model. Run ONNX models directly on iOS Partially (via MLC LLM / Metal Performance Shaders). Works, but that’s an entirely different runtime. So: you’re not crazy, and this isn’t wasted effort—you’ve actually proven that your model exports cleanly and that the only missing piece is Apple’s converter. The ONNX file you built is solid. You just need something that can translate it to Core ML. If your goal is simply “get it running on-device”, you still have two viable moves that aren’t rabbit holes: 1. Use MLC LLM / Metal runtime Skip Core ML altogether. Apple’s mlc-llm (and the “MLCChat” pipeline) can execute your ONNX or quantized model directly on the GPU. You keep full fidelity and avoid all these broken converters. 2. Use the legacy Core ML 6.x toolchain in a sandboxed Python 3.10 VM It actually works. You don’t have to downgrade your whole system—just run that specific environment once to emit the .mlpackage, then never touch it again. Nothing else will silently fix itself until Apple re-adds ONNX ingestion in Core ML 10 or a new converter.

I'm trying to use Apple's new Visual Intelligence API for recommending content through screenshot image search. The problem I encountered is that the SemanticContentDescriptor labels are either completely empty or super misleading, making it impossible to query for similar content on my app. Even the closest matching example was inaccurate, returning a single label ["cardigan"] for a Supreme T-Shirt. I see other apps using this API like Etsy for example, and I'm wondering if they're using the input pixel buffer to query for similar content rather than using the labels? If anyone has a similar experience or something that wasn't called out in the documentation please lmk! Thanks.

Hi all! Nice to meet you., I am planning to build an iOS application that can: Capture an image using the camera or select one from the gallery. Remove the background and keep only the detected main object. Add a border (outline) around the detected object’s shape. Apply an animation along that border (e.g., moving light or glowing effect). Include a transition animation when removing the background — for example, breaking the background into pieces as it disappears. The app Capword has a similar feature for object isolation, and I’d like to build something like that. Could you please provide any guidance, frameworks, or sample code related to: Object segmentation and background removal in Swift (Vision or Core ML). Applying custom borders and shape animations around detected objects. Recognizing the object name (e.g., “person”, “cat”, “car”) after segmentation. Thank you very much for your support. Best regards, SINN SOKLYHOR

We are really excited to have introduced the Foundation Models framework in WWDC25. When using the framework, you might have feedback about how it can better fit your use cases. Starting in macOS/iOS 26 Beta 4, the best way to provide feedback is to use #Playground in Xcode. To do so: In Xcode, create a playground using #Playground. Fore more information, see Running code snippets using the playground macro. Reproduce the issue by setting up a session and generating a response with your prompt. In the canvas on the right, click the thumbs-up icon to the right of the response. Follow the instructions on the pop-up window and submit your feedback by clicking Share with Apple. Another way to provide your feedback is to file a feedback report with relevant details. Specific to the Foundation Models framework, it’s super important to add the following information in your report: Language model feedback This feedback contains the session transcript, including the instructions, the prompts, the responses, etc. Without that, we can’t reason the model’s behavior, and hence can hardly take any action. Use logFeedbackAttachment(sentiment:issues:desiredOutput: ) to retrieve the feedback data of your current model session, as shown in the usage example, write the data into a file, and then attach the file to your feedback report. If you believe what you’d report is related to the system configuration, please capture a sysdiagnose and attach it to your feedback report as well. The framework is still new. Your actionable feedback helps us evolve the framework quickly, and we appreciate that. Thanks, The Foundation Models framework team

Hello Team, I'm currently working on a proof of concept using Apple's Foundation Model for a RAG-based chat system on my MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip. Environment details: macOS: 26.0 Beta Xcode: 26.0 beta 2 (17A5241o) Target platform: iPad (as the iPhone simulator does not support Foundation models) While testing, even with very small input prompts to the LLM, I intermittently encounter the following error: InferenceError::inference-Failed::Failed to run inference: Context length of 4096 was exceeded during singleExtend. Has anyone else experienced this issue? Are there known limitations or workarounds for context length handling in this setup? Any insights would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hi, guys. I'm writing about Apple Intelligence and I reached the point I have to explain App Intent Domains https://developer.apple.com/documentation/AppIntents/app-intent-domains but I noticed that there is a note explaining that these services are not available with Siri. I tried the example provided by Apple at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/AppIntents/making-your-app-s-functionality-available-to-siri and I can only make the intents work from the Shortcuts App, but not from Siri. Is this correct. App Intent Domains are still not available with Siri? Thanks

In this online session, you can code along with us as we build generative AI features into a sample app live in Xcode. We'll guide you through implementing core features like basic text generation, as well as advanced topics like guided generation for structured data output, streaming responses for dynamic UI updates, and tool calling to retrieve data or take an action. Check out these resources to get started: Download the project files: https://developer.apple.com/events/re... Explore the code along guide: https://developer.apple.com/events/re... Join the live Q&A: https://developer.apple.com/videos/pl... Agenda – All times PDT 10 a.m.: Welcome and Xcode setup 10:15 a.m.: Framework basics, guided generation, and building prompts 11 a.m.: Break 11:10 a.m.: UI streaming, tool calling, and performance optimization 11:50 a.m.: Wrap up All are welcome to attend the session. To actively code along, you'll need a Mac with Apple silicon that supports Apple Intelligence running the latest release of macOS Tahoe 26 and Xcode 26. If you have questions after the code along concludes please share a post here in the forums and engage with the community.

I’d like to submit a feature request regarding the availability of Foundation Models in MessageFilter extensions. Background MessageFilter extensions play a critical role in protecting users from spam, phishing, and unwanted messages. With the introduction of Foundation Models and Apple Intelligence, Apple has provided powerful on-device natural language understanding capabilities that are highly aligned with the goals of MessageFilter. However, Foundation Models are currently unavailable in MessageFilter extensions. Why Foundation Models Are a Great Fit for MessageFilter Message filtering is fundamentally a natural language classification problem. Foundation Models would significantly improve: Detection of phishing and scam messages Classification of promotional vs transactional content Understanding intent, tone, and semantic context beyond keyword matching Adaptation to evolving scam patterns without server-side processing All of this can be done fully on-device, preserving user privacy and aligning with Apple’s privacy-first design principles. Current Limitations Today, MessageFilter extensions are limited to relatively simple heuristics or lightweight models. This often results in: Higher false positives Lower recall for sophisticated scam messages Increased development complexity to compensate for limited NLP capabilities Request Could Apple consider one of the following: Allowing Foundation Models to be used directly within MessageFilter extensions Providing a constrained or optimized Foundation Model API specifically designed for MessageFilter Enabling a supported mechanism for MessageFilter extensions to delegate inference to the containing app using Foundation Models Even limited access (e.g. short text only, strict execution limits) would be extremely valuable. Closing Foundation Models have the potential to significantly raise the quality and effectiveness of message filtering on Apple platforms while maintaining strong privacy guarantees. Supporting them in MessageFilter extensions would be a major improvement for both developers and users. Thank you for your consideration and for continuing to invest in on-device intelligence.

I have used mlx_lm.lora to fine tune a mistral-7b-v0.3-4bit model with my data. I fused the mistral model with my adapters and upload the fused model to my directory on huggingface. I was able to use mlx_lm.generate to use the fused model in Terminal. However, I don't know how to load the model in Swift. I've used Imports import SwiftUI import MLX import MLXLMCommon import MLXLLM let modelFactory = LLMModelFactory.shared let configuration = ModelConfiguration( id: "pharmpk/pk-mistral-7b-v0.3-4bit" ) // Load the model off the main actor, then assign on the main actor let loaded = try await modelFactory.loadContainer(configuration: configuration) { progress in print("Downloading progress: \(progress.fractionCompleted * 100)%") } await MainActor.run { self.model = loaded } I'm getting an error runModel error: downloadError("A server with the specified hostname could not be found.") Any suggestions? Thanks, David PS, I can load the model from the app bundle // directory: Bundle.main.resourceURL! but it's too big to upload for Testflight

Hello! I'm following the Foundation Models adapter training guide (https://developer.apple.com/apple-intelligence/foundation-models-adapter/) on my NVIDIA DGX Spark box. I'm able to train on my own data but the example notebook fails when I try to export the artifact as an fmadapter. I get the following error for the code block I'm trying to run. I haven't touched any of the code in the export folder. I tried exporting it on my Mac too and got the same error as well (given below). Would appreciate some more clarity around this. Thank you. Code Block: from export.export_fmadapter import Metadata, export_fmadapter metadata = Metadata( author="3P developer", description="An adapter that writes play scripts.", ) export_fmadapter( output_dir="./", adapter_name="myPlaywritingAdapter", metadata=metadata, checkpoint="adapter-final.pt", draft_checkpoint="draft-model-final.pt", ) Error: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ModuleNotFoundError Traceback (most recent call last) Cell In[10], line 1 ----> 1 from export.export_fmadapter import Metadata, export_fmadapter 3 metadata = Metadata( 4 author="3P developer", 5 description="An adapter that writes play scripts.", 6 ) 8 export_fmadapter( 9 output_dir="./", 10 adapter_name="myPlaywritingAdapter", (...) 13 draft_checkpoint="draft-model-final.pt", 14 ) File /workspace/export/export_fmadapter.py:11 8 from typing import Any 10 from .constants import BASE_SIGNATURE, MIL_PATH ---> 11 from .export_utils import AdapterConverter, AdapterSpec, DraftModelConverter, camelize 13 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__) 16 class MetadataKeys(enum.StrEnum): File /workspace/export/export_utils.py:15 13 import torch 14 import yaml ---> 15 from coremltools.libmilstoragepython import _BlobStorageWriter as BlobWriter 16 from coremltools.models.neural_network.quantization_utils import _get_kmeans_lookup_table_and_weight 17 from coremltools.optimize._utils import LutParams ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'coremltools.libmilstoragepython'

I am excited to share that I have developed a Metal kernel for Flash Attention that eliminates race conditions and fully leverages Apple Silicon’s shared memory and registers. This kernel can dramatically accelerate training of transformer-based models. Early benchmarks suggest that models which previously required months to train could see reductions to just a few hours on Apple hardware, while maintaining numerical stability and accuracy. I plan to make the code publicly available to enable the broader community to benefit. I would be happy to keep you updated on the latest developments and improvements as I continue testing and optimizing the kernel. I believe this work could provide valuable insights for Apple’s machine learning research and products.

Posting a follow up question after the WWDC 2025 Machine Learning AI & Frameworks Group Lab on June 12. In regards to the on-device API of any of the AI frameworks (foundation model, vision framework, ect.), is there a response condition or path where the API outsources it's input to ChatGPT if the user has allowed this like Siri does? Ignore this if it's a no: is this handled behind the scenes or by the developer?

Hi everyone, I'm experiencing an inconsistent behavior with the Translation framework on iOS 18. The LanguageAvailability.status() API reports language models as .installed, but translation fails with Code 16. Setup: Using translationTask modifier with TranslationSession Batch translation with explicit source/target languages Languages: Portuguese→English, German→English Issue: let status = await LanguageAvailability().status(from: sourceLang, to: targetLang) // Returns: .installed // But translation fails: let responses = try await session.translations(from: requests) // Error: TranslationErrorDomain Code=16 "Offline models not available" Logs: Language model installed: pt -> en Language model installed: de -> en Starting translation: de -> en Error Domain=TranslationErrorDomain Code=16 "Translation failed"NSLocalizedFailureReason=Offline models not available for language pair What I've tried: Re-downloading languages in Settings Using source: nil for auto-detection Fresh TranslationSession.Configuration each time Questions: Is there a way to force model re-validation/re-download programmatically? Should translationTask show download popup when Code 16 occurs? Has anyone found a reliable workaround? I've seen similar reports in threads 791357 and 777113. Any guidance appreciated! Thanks!

JAX Metal shows 55x slower random number generation compared to NVIDIA CUDA on equivalent workloads. This makes Monte Carlo simulations and scientific computing impractical on Apple Silicon. Performance Comparison NVIDIA GPU: 0.475s for 12.6M random elements M1 Max Metal: 26.3s for same workload Performance gap: 55x slower Environment Apple M1 Max, 64GB RAM, macOS Sequoia Version 15.6.1 JAX 0.4.34, jax-metal latest Backend: Metal Reproduction Code import time import jax import jax.numpy as jnp from jax import random key = random.PRNGKey(42) start_time = time.time() random_array = random.normal(key, (50000, 252)) duration = time.time() - start_time print(f"Duration: {duration:.3f}s")

I am a professional user of the 2019 Mac Pro (7,1) with dual AMD Radeon Pro W6900X MPX modules (32GB VRAM each). This hardware is designed for high-performance compute, but it is currently crippled for modern local LLM/AI workloads under Linux due to Apple's EFI/PCIe routing restrictions. Core Issue: rocminfo reports "No HIP GPUs available" when attempting to use ROCm/amdgpu on Linux Apple's custom EFI firmware blocks full initialization of professional GPU compute assets The dual W6900X GPUs have 64GB combined VRAM and high-bandwidth Infinity Fabric Link, but cannot be fully utilized for local AI inference/training My Specific Request: Apple should provide an official, one-click deployable application that enables full utilization of dual W6900X GPUs for local large language model (LLM) inference and training under Linux. This application must: Fully initialize both W6900X GPUs via HIP/ROCm, establishing valid compute contexts Bypass artificial EFI/PCIe routing restrictions that block access to professional GPU resources Provide a stable, user-friendly one-click deployment experience (similar to NVIDIA's AI Enterprise or AMD's ROCm Hub) Why This Matters: The 2019 Mac Pro is Apple's flagship professional workstation, marketed for compute-intensive workloads. Its high-cost W6900X GPUs should not be locked down for modern AI/LLM use cases. An official one-click deployment solution would demonstrate Apple's commitment to professional AI and unlock significant value for professional users. I look forward to Apple's response and a clear roadmap for enabling this critical capability. #MacPro #Linux #ROCm #LocalLLM #W6900X #CoreML

Is the face and body detection service in the Vision framework a local model or a cloud model? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision

My app lets you create images with Image Playground. When the user approves an image I move it to the documents dir from the temp storage. With over a year of usage I’ve created a lot of images over time. Out of nowhere the app stopped loading my custom creations from Image Playground saying it couldn’t find the files. It still had my VoiceOver strings I had added for each image and still had the custom categories I assigned them. Debug code to look in the docs dir doesn’t find them. I downloaded the app’s container and only see the images I created as a test after the problem started. But my ~70MB app is still taking up 300MB on my iPhone so it feels like they’re there but not accessible. Is there anything else I can try?

WWDC25: Combine Metal 4 machine learning and graphics Demonstrated a way to combine neural network in the graphics pipeline directly through the shaders, using an example of Texture Compression. However there is no mention of using which ML technique texture is compressed. Can anyone point me to some well known model/s for this particular use case shown in WWDC25.

Hi Guys, I want to use the newest Mac Book Pro M6 (Max or Ultra) with at least 256GB RAM for AI development. Will my wish may come true? What do you think? One of Apples most advantage here is unified memory and with the privacy first approach, i want to run local modells and show it to my customer just on the macbook. That has much more magic then first plug the power supply for a sparc, connect a network cable and fiddling around. The perfect match would be a Max Book Pro, M6 Ultra, 512GB. But I guess this is just a dream :-(. Please let me know what you think abou that. Thanks

Hello Apple Developer Community, I'm investigating Core ML model loading behavior and noticed that even when the compiled model path remains unchanged after an APP update, the first run still triggers an "uncached load" process. This seems to impact user experience with unnecessary delays. Question: Does Core ML provide any public API to check whether a compiled model (from a specific .mlmodelc path) is already cached in the system? If such API exists, we'd like to use it for pre-loading decision logic - only perform background pre-load when the model isn't cached. Has anyone encountered similar scenarios or found official solutions? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!