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Local LLM on the Apple Silicon Macs
▲ 13 r/macosprogramming+5 crossposts

Local LLM on the Apple Silicon Macs

I've been messing with on-device AI stuff for Apple Silicon Macs and put together LocalLM Lab to make experimentation easier.

It started as a simple prompt interface as just a way to poke at Apple's on-device foundation model and see how it responds. Since then I've added an OpenAI API-compatible endpoint (localhost or external IP), so you can point existing tools/scripts at it like any other local model server.

Right now it's built on Apple's Foundation Models framework. With the new LanguageModel protocol Apple introduced this year, the framework isn't locked to Apple's on-device model anymore. Any provider that ships a conforming Swift package (local MLX models, Claude, Gemini, etc) should be a plug-in. I'm looking at wiring that up so LocalLM Lab isn't limited to just the built-in model.

It's a free download from thisbrain.ai/locallm

Let me know how you think LocalLM Lab should evolve. MCP? Model switching in the UI? Something else?

u/AdventurousKeys — 4 days ago
▲ 6 r/macosprogramming

Maybe subscription pricing isn't always bad

For Mojave Paint I've had an anti-subscription stance from the start, it being an installed binary not a service that has ongoing infrastructure costs.

But I recently installed Final Cut Pro and instead of $300 to buy it I do the $13/month subscription. In that case it's nice to have the option and it's made me rethink hating on subscriptions. Maybe subscription is fine if:

a. It's an alternative to buying outright
b. It's priced cheap enough

Most people's subscriptions are simply way too expensive. For FCP, the break even point is about two years, which makes the subscription seem like kind of a deal.

So for Mojave Paint, say I get the feature set rounded out and start charging $20 for it, the right price for subscription would be $1/month. I'm sort of leaning to this model because the Mac App Store has no free trial option, so you're stuck with IAP or Subscription and I pretty much hate IAP and the huckster marketing you have to put in there of "Go Pro!" So what I'm kind of leaning to is selling: 1. On my website via lemonsqueezy or whatever, perpetual license with 2 years of updates (Sublime Text style), and 2. The only version in the Mac App Store is the cheaply priced subscription version, which you can consider to be like a free-ish trial.

Has anyone had success with such a pricing scheme?

reddit.com
u/banana_zest — 11 days ago