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Building Real-Time Voice Input on macOS 26 with SpeechAnalyzer + ScreenCaptureKit
We built an open-source macOS menu bar app that turns speech into text and pastes it into the active app — using SpeechAnalyzer for on-device transcription, ScreenCaptureKit + Vision for screen-aware context, and FluidAudio for speaker diarization in meeting mode. Here's what we learned shipping it on macOS 26. GitHub: github.com/Marvinngg/ambient-voice Architecture The app has two modes: hotkey dictation (press to talk, release to inject) and meeting recording (continuous transcription with a floating panel). Dictation Mode Audio capture uses AVCaptureSession (more on why below). The captured audio feeds into SpeechAnalyzer via an AsyncStream: let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber( locale: locale, transcriptionOptions: [], reportingOptions: [.volatileResults, .alternativeTranscriptions], attributeOptions: [.audioTimeRange, .transcriptionConfidence] ) let analyzer = SpeechAnalyzer(modules: [transcriber]) let (inputSequence, inputBuilder) = AsyncStream.makeStream() try await analyzer.start(inputSequence: inputSequence) While recording, we capture a screenshot of the focused window using ScreenCaptureKit, run Vision OCR (VNRecognizeTextRequest), extract keywords, and inject them into SpeechAnalyzer as contextual bias: let context = AnalysisContext() context.contextualStrings[.general] = ocrKeywords try await analyzer.setContext(context) This improves accuracy for technical terms and proper nouns visible on screen. If your screen shows "SpeechAnalyzer", saying it out loud is more likely to be transcribed correctly. After transcription, an optional L2 step sends the text through a local LLM (ollama) for spoken-to-written cleanup, then CGEvent simulates Cmd+V to paste into the active app. Meeting Mode Meeting mode forks the same audio stream to two consumers: SpeechAnalyzer — real-time streaming transcription, displayed in a floating NSPanel FluidAudio buffer — accumulates 16kHz Float32 mono samples for batch speaker diarization after recording stops When the user ends the meeting, FluidAudio's performCompleteDiarization() runs on the accumulated audio. We align transcription segments with speaker segments using audioTimeRange overlap matching — each transcription segment gets assigned the speaker ID with the most time overlap. Results export to Markdown. Pitfalls We Hit on macOS 26 1. AVAudioEngine installTap doesn't fire with Bluetooth devices We started with AVAudioEngine.inputNode.installTap() for audio capture. It worked fine with built-in mics but the tap callback never fired with Bluetooth devices (tested with vivo TWS 4 Hi-Fi). Fix: switched to AVCaptureSession. The delegate callback captureOutput(_:didOutput:from:) fires reliably regardless of audio device. The tradeoff is you get CMSampleBuffer instead of AVAudioPCMBuffer, so you need a conversion step. 2. NSEvent addGlobalMonitorForEvents crashes Our global hotkey listener used NSEvent.addGlobalMonitorForEvents. On macOS 26, this crashes with a Bus error inside GlobalObserverHandler — appears to be a Swift actor runtime issue. Fix: switched to CGEventTap. Works reliably, but the callback runs on a CFRunLoop context, which Swift doesn't recognize as MainActor. 3. CGEventTap callbacks aren't on MainActor If your CGEventTap callback touches any @MainActor state, you'll get concurrency violations. The callback runs on whatever thread owns the CFRunLoop. Fix: bridge with DispatchQueue.main.async {} inside the tap callback before touching any MainActor state. 4. CGPreflightScreenCaptureAccess doesn't request permission We used CGPreflightScreenCaptureAccess() as a guard before calling ScreenCaptureKit. If it returned false, we'd bail out. The problem: this function only checks — it never triggers macOS to add your app to the Screen Recording permission list. Chicken-and-egg: you can't get permission because you never ask for it. Fix: call CGRequestScreenCaptureAccess() at app startup. This adds your app to System Settings → Screen Recording. Then let ScreenCaptureKit calls proceed without the preflight guard — SCShareableContent will also trigger the permission prompt on first use. 5. Ad-hoc signing breaks TCC permissions on every rebuild During development, codesign --sign - (ad-hoc) generates a different code directory hash on every build. macOS TCC tracks permissions by this hash, so every rebuild = new app identity = all permissions reset. Fix: sign with a stable certificate. If you have an Apple Development certificate, use that. The TeamIdentifier stays constant across rebuilds, so TCC permissions persist. We also discovered that launching via open WE.app (LaunchServices) instead of directly executing the binary is required — otherwise macOS attributes TCC permissions to Terminal, not your app. Benchmarks We ran end-to-end benchmarks on public datasets (Mac Mini M4 16GB, macOS 26): Transcription (SpeechAnalyzer, AliMeeting Chinese): • Near-field CER 34% (excluding outliers ~25%) • Far-field CER 40% (single channel, no beamforming, >30% overlap) • Processing speed 74-89x real-time Speaker diarization (FluidAudio offline): • AMI English 16 meetings: avg DER 23.2% (collar=0.25s, ignoreOverlap=True) • AliMeeting Chinese 8 meetings: DER 48.5% (including overlap regions) • Memory: RSS ~500MB, peak 730-930MB Full evaluation methodology, scripts, and raw results are in the repo. Open Source The project is MIT licensed: github.com/Marvinngg/ambient-voice It includes the macOS client (Swift 6.2, SPM), server-side distillation/training scripts (Python), and a complete evaluation framework with reproducible benchmarks. Feedback and contributions welcome.
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Provide spoken voice search string
Hello, My goal is to enable users to perform a freeform search request for any product I sell using a spoken phrase, for example, "Hey Siri, search GAMING CONSOLES on MyCatalogApp". The result would launch MyCatalogApp and navigate to a search results page displaying gaming consoles. I have defined a SearchIntent (using the .system.search schema) and a Shortcut to accomplish this. However, Siri doesn't seem to be able to correctly parse the spoken phrase, extract the search string, and provide it as the critiria term within SearchIntent. What am I doing wrong? Here is the SearchIntent. Note the print() statement outputs the search string--which in the scenario above would be "GAMING CONSOLES"--but it doesn't work. import AppIntents @available(iOS 17.2, *) @AppIntent(schema: .system.search) struct SearchIntent: ShowInAppSearchResultsIntent { static var searchScopes: [StringSearchScope] = [.general] @Parameter(title: "Criteria") var criteria: StringSearchCriteria static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "Search with MyCatalogApp" @MainActor func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { let searchString = criteria.term print("**** Search String: \(searchString) ****") // tmp debugging try await MyCatalogSearchHelper.search(for: searchString) // fetch results via my async fetch API return .result() } } Here's the Shortcuts definition: import AppIntents @available(iOS 17.2, *) struct Shortcuts: AppShortcutsProvider { @AppShortcutsBuilder static var appShortcuts: [AppShortcut] { AppShortcut( intent: SearchIntent(), phrases: ["Search for \(\.$criteria) on \(.applicationName)."], shortTitle: "Search", systemImageName: "magnifyingglass" ) } } Thanks for any help!
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reinforcement learning from Apple?
I don't know if these forums are any good for rumors or plans, but does anybody know whether or not Apple plans to release a library for training reinforcement learning? It would be handy, implementing games in Swift, for example, to be able to train the computer players on the same code.
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Subject: Technical Report: Float32 Precision Ceiling & Memory Fragmentation in JAX/Metal Workloads on M3
Subject: Technical Report: Float32 Precision Ceiling & Memory Fragmentation in JAX/Metal Workloads on M3 To: Metal Developer Relations Hello, I am reporting a repeatable numerical saturation point encountered during sustained recursive high-order differential workloads on the Apple M3 (16 GB unified memory) using the JAX Metal backend. Workload Characteristics: Large-scale vector projections across multi-dimensional industrial datasets Repeated high-order finite-difference calculations Heavy use of jax.grad and lax.cond inside long-running loops Observation: Under these conditions, the Metal/MPS backend consistently enters a terminal quantization lock where outputs saturate at a fixed scalar value (2.0000), followed by system-wide NaN propagation. This appears to be a precision-limited boundary in the JAX-Metal bridge when handling high-order operations with cubic time-scale denominators. have identified the specific threshold where recursive high-order tensor derivatives exceed the numerical resolution of 32-bit consumer architectures, necessitating a migration to a dedicated 64-bit industrial stack. I have prepared a minimal synthetic test script (randomized vectors only, no proprietary logic) that reliably reproduces the allocator fragmentation and saturation behavior. Let me know if your team would like the telemetry for XLA/MPS optimization purposes. Best regards, Alex Severson Architect, QuantumPulse AI
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Translation framework use in Swift 6
I’m trying to integrate Apple’s Translation framework in a Swift 6 project with Approachable Concurrency enabled. I’m following the code here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/translation/translating-text-within-your-app#Offer-a-custom-translation And, specifically, inside the following code .translationTask(configuration) { session in do { // Use the session the task provides to translate the text. let response = try await session.translate(sourceText) // Update the view with the translated result. targetText = response.targetText } catch { // Handle any errors. } } On the try await session.translate(…) line, the compiler complains that “Sending ‘session’ risks causing data races”. Extended error message: Sending main actor-isolated 'session' to @concurrent instance method 'translate' risks causing data races between @concurrent and main actor-isolated uses I’ve downloaded Apple’s sample code (at the top of linked webpage), it compiles fine as-is on Xcode 26.4, but fails with the same error as soon as I switch the Swift Language Mode to Swift 6 in the project. How can I fix this?
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Apple OCR framework seems to be holding on to allocations every time it is called.
Environment: macOS 26.2 (Tahoe) Xcode 16.3 Apple Silicon (M4) Sandboxed Mac App Store app Description: Repeated use of VNRecognizeTextRequest causes permanent memory growth in the host process. The physical footprint increases by approximately 3-15 MB per OCR call and never returns to baseline, even after all references to the request, handler, observations, and image are released. ` private func selectAndProcessImage() { let panel = NSOpenPanel() panel.allowedContentTypes = [.image] panel.allowsMultipleSelection = false panel.canChooseDirectories = false panel.message = "Select an image for OCR processing" guard panel.runModal() == .OK, let url = panel.url else { return } selectedImageURL = url isProcessing = true recognizedText = "Processing..." // Run OCR on a background thread to keep UI responsive let workItem = DispatchWorkItem { let result = performOCR(on: url) DispatchQueue.main.async { recognizedText = result isProcessing = false } } DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async(execute: workItem) } private func performOCR(on url: URL) -> String { // Wrap EVERYTHING in autoreleasepool so all ObjC objects are drained immediately let resultText: String = autoreleasepool { // Load image and convert to CVPixelBuffer for explicit memory control guard let imageData = try? Data(contentsOf: url) else { return "Error: Could not read image file." } guard let nsImage = NSImage(data: imageData) else { return "Error: Could not create image from file data." } guard let cgImage = nsImage.cgImage(forProposedRect: nil, context: nil, hints: nil) else { return "Error: Could not create CGImage." } let width = cgImage.width let height = cgImage.height // Create a CVPixelBuffer from the CGImage var pixelBuffer: CVPixelBuffer? let attrs: [String: Any] = [ kCVPixelBufferCGImageCompatibilityKey as String: true, kCVPixelBufferCGBitmapContextCompatibilityKey as String: true ] let status = CVPixelBufferCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, width, height, kCVPixelFormatType_32ARGB, attrs as CFDictionary, &pixelBuffer ) guard status == kCVReturnSuccess, let buffer = pixelBuffer else { return "Error: Could not create CVPixelBuffer (status: \(status))." } // Draw the CGImage into the pixel buffer CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(buffer, []) guard let context = CGContext( data: CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(buffer), width: width, height: height, bitsPerComponent: 8, bytesPerRow: CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(buffer), space: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), bitmapInfo: CGImageAlphaInfo.noneSkipFirst.rawValue ) else { CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, []) return "Error: Could not create CGContext for pixel buffer." } context.draw(cgImage, in: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: width, height: height)) CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, []) // Run OCR let requestHandler = VNImageRequestHandler(cvPixelBuffer: buffer, options: [:]) let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest() request.recognitionLevel = .accurate request.usesLanguageCorrection = true do { try requestHandler.perform([request]) } catch { return "Error during OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)" } guard let observations = request.results, !observations.isEmpty else { return "No text found in image." } let lines = observations.compactMap { observation in observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string } // Explicitly nil out the pixel buffer before the pool drains pixelBuffer = nil return lines.joined(separator: "\n") } // Everything — Data, NSImage, CGImage, CVPixelBuffer, VN objects — released here return resultText } `
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Feb ’26
Tensorflow metal: Issue using assign operation on MacBook M4
I get the following error when running this command in a Jupyter notebook: v = tf.Variable(initial_value=tf.random.normal(shape=(3, 1))) v[0, 0].assign(3.) Environment: python == 3.11.14 tensorflow==2.19.1 tensorflow-metal==1.2.0 { "name": "InvalidArgumentError", "message": "Cannot assign a device for operation ResourceStridedSliceAssign: Could not satisfy explicit device specification '/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' because no supported kernel for GPU devices is available.\nColocation Debug Info:\nColocation group had the following types and supported devices: \nRoot Member(assigned_device_name_index_=1 requested_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' assigned_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' resource_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' supported_device_types_=[CPU] possible_devices_=[]\nResourceStridedSliceAssign: CPU \n_Arg: GPU CPU \n\nColocation members, user-requested devices, and framework assigned devices, if any:\n ref (_Arg) framework assigned device=/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0\n ResourceStridedSliceAssign (ResourceStridedSliceAssign) /job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0\n\nOp: ResourceStridedSliceAssign\n [...] [[{{node ResourceStridedSliceAssign}}]] [Op:ResourceStridedSliceAssign] name: strided_slice/_assign" } It seems like the ResourceStridedSliceAssign operation is not implemented for the GPU
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Feb ’26
Core Image for depth maps & segmentation masks: numeric fidelity issues when rendering CIImage to CVPixelBuffer (looking for Architecture suggestions)
Hello All, I’m working on a computer-vision–heavy iOS application that uses the camera, LiDAR depth maps, and semantic segmentation to reason about the environment (object identification, localization and measurement - not just visualization). Current architecture I initially built the image pipeline around CIImage as a unifying abstraction. It seemed like a good idea because: CIImage integrates cleanly with Vision, ARKit, AVFoundation, Metal, Core Graphics, etc. It provides a rich set of out-of-the-box transforms and filters. It is immutable and thread-safe, which significantly simplified concurrency in a multi-queue pipeline. The LiDAR depth maps, semantic segmentation masks, etc. were treated as CIImages, with conversion to CVPixelBuffer or MTLTexture only at the edges when required. Problem I’ve run into cases where Core Image transformations do not preserve numeric fidelity for non-visual data. Example: Rendering a CIImage-backed segmentation mask into a larger CVPixelBuffer can cause label values to change in predictable but incorrect ways. This occurs even when: using nearest-neighbor sampling disabling color management (workingColorSpace / outputColorSpace = NSNull) applying identity or simple affine transforms I’ve confirmed via controlled tests that: Metal → CVPixelBuffer paths preserve values correctly CIImage → CVPixelBuffer paths can introduce value changes when resampling or expanding the render target This makes CIImage unsafe as a source of numeric truth for segmentation masks and depth-based logic, even though it works well for visualization, and I should have realized this much sooner. Direction I’m considering I’m now considering refactoring toward more intent-based abstractions instead of a single image type, for example: Visual images: CIImage (camera frames, overlays, debugging, UI) Scalar fields: depth / confidence maps backed by CVPixelBuffer + Metal Label maps: segmentation masks backed by integer-preserving buffers (no interpolation, no transforms) In this model, CIImage would still be used extensively — but primarily for visualization and perceptual processing, not as the container for numerically sensitive data. Thread safety concern One of the original advantages of CIImage was that it is thread-safe by design, and that was my biggest incentive. For CVPixelBuffer / MTLTexture–backed data, I’m considering enforcing thread safety explicitly via: Swift Concurrency (actor-owned data, explicit ownership) Questions For those may have experience with CV / AR / imaging-heavy iOS apps, I was hoping to know the following: Is this separation of image intent (visual vs numeric vs categorical) a reasonable architectural direction? Do you generally keep CIImage at the heart of your pipeline, or push it to the edges (visualization only)? How do you manage thread safety and ownership when working heavily with CVPixelBuffer and Metal? Using actor-based abstractions, GCD, or adhoc? Are there any best practices or gotchas around using Core Image with depth maps or segmentation masks that I should be aware of? I’d really appreciate any guidance or experience-based advice. I suspect I’ve hit a boundary of Core Image’s design, and I’m trying to refactor in a way that doesn't involve too much immediate tech debt, remains robust and maintainable long-term. Thank you in advance!
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Feb ’26
Tone, Sentiment, language analysis on iPhone - Ideas
Hi everyone, I’m exploring ideas around on-device analysis of user typing behavior on iPhone, and I’d love input from others who’ve worked in this area or thought about similar problems. Conceptually, I’m interested in things like: High-level sentiment or tone inferred from what a user types over time using ML-models Identifying a user’s most important or frequent topics over a recent window (e.g., “last week”) Aggregated insights rather than raw text (privacy-preserving summaries: e.g., your typo-rate by hour to infer highly efficient time slots or "take-a-break" warning typing errors increase) I understand the significant privacy restrictions around keyboard input on iOS, especially for third-party keyboards and system text fields. I’m not trying to bypass those constraints—rather, I’m curious about what’s realistically possible within Apple’s frameworks and policies. (For instance, Grammarly as a correction tool includes some information about tone) Questions I’m thinking through: Are there any recommended approaches for on-device text analysis that don’t rely on capturing raw keystrokes? Has anyone used NLP / Core ML / Natural Language successfully for similar summarization or sentiment tasks, scoped only to user-explicit input? For custom keyboards, what kinds of derived or transient signals (if any) are acceptable to process and summarize locally? Any design patterns that balance usefulness with Apple’s privacy expectations? If you’ve built something adjacent—journaling, writing analytics, well-being apps, etc.—I’d appreciate hearing what worked, what didn’t, and what Apple reviewers were comfortable with. Thanks in advance for any ideas or references 🙏
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Feb ’26
Shortcut - “Use Model” error handling?
I have a series of shortcuts that I’ve written that use the “Use Model” action to do various things. For example, I have a shortcut “Clipboard Markdown to Notes” that takes the content of the clipboard, creates a new note in Notes, converts the markdown content to rich text, adds it to the note etc. One key step is to analyze the markdown content with “Use Model” and generate a short descriptive title for the note. I use the on-device model for this, but sometimes the content and prompt exceed the context window size and the action fails with an error message to that effect. In that case, I’d like to either repeat the action using the Cloud model, or, if the error was a refusal, to prompt the user to enter a title to use. I‘ve tried using an IF based on whether the response had any text in it, but that didn’t work. No matter what I’ve tried, I can’t seem to find a way to catch the error from Use Model, determine what the error was, and take appropriate action. Is there a way to do this? (And by the way, a huge ”thank you” to whoever had the idea of making AppIntents visible in Shortcuts and adding the Use Model action — has made a huge difference already, and it lets us see what Siri will be able to use as well.)
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Jan ’26
Translation Framework: Code 16 "Offline models not available" despite status showing .installed
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!
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450
Jan ’26
Khmer Script Misidentified as Thai in Vision Framework
It is vital for Apple to refine its OCR models to correctly distinguish between Khmer and Thai scripts. Incorrectly labeling Khmer text as Thai is more than a technical bug; it is a culturally insensitive error that impacts national identity, especially given the current geopolitical climate between Cambodia and Thailand. Implementing a more robust language-detection threshold would prevent these harmful misidentifications. There is a significant logic flaw in the VNRecognizeTextRequest language detection when processing Khmer script. When the property automaticallyDetectsLanguage is set to true, the Vision framework frequently misidentifies Khmer characters as Thai. While both scripts share historical roots, they are distinct languages with different alphabets. Currently, the model’s confidence threshold for distinguishing between these two scripts is too low, leading to incorrect OCR output in both developer-facing APIs and Apple’s native ecosystem (Preview, Live Text, and Photos). import SwiftUI import Vision class TextExtractor { func extractText(from data: Data, completion: @escaping (String) -> Void) { let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest { (request, error) in guard let observations = request.results as? [VNRecognizedTextObservation] else { completion("No text found.") return } let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } completion(recognizedStrings.joined(separator: "\n")) } request.automaticallyDetectsLanguage = true // <-- This is the issue. request.recognitionLevel = .accurate let handler = VNImageRequestHandler(data: data, options: [:]) DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { try handler.perform([request]) } catch { completion("Failed to perform OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } } Recognizing Khmer Confidence Score is low for Khmer text. (The output is in Thai language with low confidence score) Recognizing English Confidence Score is high expected. Recognizing Thai Confidence Score is high as expected Issues on Preview, Photos Khmer text Copied text Kouk Pring Chroum Temple [19121 รอาสายสุกตีนานยารรีสใหิสรราภูชิตีนนสุฐตีย์ [รุก เผือชิษาธอยกัตธ์ตายตราพาษชาณา ถวเชยาใบสราเบรถทีมูสินตราพาษชาณา ทีมูโษา เช็ก อาษเชิษฐอารายสุกบดตพรธุรฯ ตากร"สุก"ผาตากรธกรธุกเยากสเผาพศฐตาสาย รัอรณาษ"ตีพย" สเผาพกรกฐาภูชิสาเครๆผู:สุกรตีพาสเผาพสรอสายใผิตรรารตีพสๆ เดียอลายสุกตีน ธาราชรติ ธิพรหณาะพูชุบละเาหLunet De Lajonquiere ผารูกรสาราพารผรผาสิตภพ ตารสิทูก ธิพิ คุณที่นสายเระพบพเคเผาหนารเกะทรนภาษเราภุพเสารเราษทีเลิกสญาเราหรุฬารชสเกาก เรากุม สงสอบานตรเราะากกต่ายภากายระตารุกเตียน Recommended Solutions 1. Set a Threshold Filter out the detected result where the threshold is less than or equal to 0.5, so that it would not output low quality text which can lead to the issue. For example, let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in if observation.confidence <= 0.5 { return nil } let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } 2. Add Khmer Language Support This issue would never happen if the model has the capability to detect and recognize image with Khmer language. Doc2Text GitHub: https://github.com/seanghay/Doc2Text-Swift
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1k
Jan ’26
recent JAX versions fail on Metal
Hi, I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate forum for this topic. I just followed a link from the JAX Metal plugin page https://developer.apple.com/metal/jax/ I'm writing a Python app with JAX, and recent JAX versions fail on Metal. E.g. v0.8.2 I have to downgrade JAX pretty hard to make it work: pip install jax==0.4.35 jaxlib==0.4.35 jax-metal==0.1.1 Can we get an updated release of jax-metal that would fix this issue? Here is the error I get with JAX v0.8.2: WARNING:2025-12-26 09:55:28,117:jax._src.xla_bridge:881: Platform 'METAL' is experimental and not all JAX functionality may be correctly supported! WARNING: All log messages before absl::InitializeLog() is called are written to STDERR W0000 00:00:1766771728.118004 207582 mps_client.cc:510] WARNING: JAX Apple GPU support is experimental and not all JAX functionality is correctly supported! Metal device set to: Apple M3 Max systemMemory: 36.00 GB maxCacheSize: 13.50 GB I0000 00:00:1766771728.129886 207582 service.cc:145] XLA service 0x600001fad300 initialized for platform METAL (this does not guarantee that XLA will be used). Devices: I0000 00:00:1766771728.129893 207582 service.cc:153] StreamExecutor device (0): Metal, <undefined> I0000 00:00:1766771728.130856 207582 mps_client.cc:406] Using Simple allocator. I0000 00:00:1766771728.130864 207582 mps_client.cc:384] XLA backend will use up to 28990554112 bytes on device 0 for SimpleAllocator. Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> import jax; print(jax.numpy.arange(10)) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 5951, in arange return _arange(start, stop=stop, step=step, dtype=dtype, out_sharding=sharding) File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 6012, in _arange return lax.broadcasted_iota(dtype, (size,), 0, out_sharding=out_sharding) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/lax/lax.py", line 3415, in broadcasted_iota return iota_p.bind(dtype=dtype, shape=shape, ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dimension=dimension, sharding=out_sharding) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 633, in bind return self._true_bind(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 649, in _true_bind return self.bind_with_trace(prev_trace, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 661, in bind_with_trace return trace.process_primitive(self, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 1210, in process_primitive return primitive.impl(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/dispatch.py", line 91, in apply_primitive outs = fun(*args) jax.errors.JaxRuntimeError: UNKNOWN: -:0:0: error: unknown attribute code: 22 -:0:0: note: in bytecode version 6 produced by: StableHLO_v1.13.0 -------------------- For simplicity, JAX has removed its internal frames from the traceback of the following exception. Set JAX_TRACEBACK_FILTERING=off to include these. I0000 00:00:1766771728.149951 207582 mps_client.h:209] MetalClient destroyed.
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578
Dec ’25
Apple's AI development language is not compatible
We are developing Apple AI for overseas markets and adapting it for iPhone 17 and later models. When the system language and Siri language do not match—such as the system being in English while Siri is in Chinese—it may result in Apple AI being unusable. So, I would like to ask, how can this issue be resolved, and are there other reasons that might cause it to be unusable within the app?
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1.2k
Dec ’25
RDMA API Documentation
With the release of the newest version of tahoe and MLX supporting RDMA. Is there a documentation link to how to utilizes the libdrma dylib as well as what functions are available? I am currently assuming it mostly follows the standard linux infiniband library but I would like the apple specific details.
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Dec ’25
Vision face landmarks shifted on iOS 26 but correct on iOS 18 with same code and image
I'm using Vision framework (DetectFaceLandmarksRequest) with the same code and the same test image to detect face landmarks. On iOS 18 everything works as expected: detected face landmarks align with the face correctly. But when I run the same code on devices with iOS 26, the landmark coordinates are outside the [0,1] range, which indicates they are out of face bounds. Fun fact: the old VNDetectFaceLandmarksRequest API works very well without encountering this issue How I get face landmarks: private let faceRectangleRequest = DetectFaceRectanglesRequest(.revision3) private var faceLandmarksRequest = DetectFaceLandmarksRequest(.revision3) func detectFaces(in ciImage: CIImage) async throws -> FaceTrackingResult { let faces = try await faceRectangleRequest.perform(on: ciImage) faceLandmarksRequest.inputFaceObservations = faces let landmarksResults = try await faceLandmarksRequest.perform(on: ciImage) ... } How I show face landmarks in SwiftUI View: private func convert( point: NormalizedPoint, faceBoundingBox: NormalizedRect, imageSize: CGSize ) -> CGPoint { let point = point.toImageCoordinates( from: faceBoundingBox, imageSize: imageSize, origin: .upperLeft ) return point } At the same time, it works as expected and gives me the correct results: region is FaceObservation.Landmarks2D.Region let points: [CGPoint] = region.pointsInImageCoordinates( imageSize, origin: .upperLeft ) After that, I found that the landmarks are normalized relative to the unalignedBoundingBox. However, I can’t access it in code. Still, using these values for the bounding box works correctly. Things I've already tried: Same image input Tested multiple devices on iOS 26.2 -> always wrong. Tested multiple devices on iOS 18.7.1 -> always correct. Environment: macOS 26.2 Xcode 26.2 (17C52) Real devices, not simulator Face Landmarks iOS 18 Face Landmarks iOS 26
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Dec ’25
Building Real-Time Voice Input on macOS 26 with SpeechAnalyzer + ScreenCaptureKit
We built an open-source macOS menu bar app that turns speech into text and pastes it into the active app — using SpeechAnalyzer for on-device transcription, ScreenCaptureKit + Vision for screen-aware context, and FluidAudio for speaker diarization in meeting mode. Here's what we learned shipping it on macOS 26. GitHub: github.com/Marvinngg/ambient-voice Architecture The app has two modes: hotkey dictation (press to talk, release to inject) and meeting recording (continuous transcription with a floating panel). Dictation Mode Audio capture uses AVCaptureSession (more on why below). The captured audio feeds into SpeechAnalyzer via an AsyncStream: let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber( locale: locale, transcriptionOptions: [], reportingOptions: [.volatileResults, .alternativeTranscriptions], attributeOptions: [.audioTimeRange, .transcriptionConfidence] ) let analyzer = SpeechAnalyzer(modules: [transcriber]) let (inputSequence, inputBuilder) = AsyncStream.makeStream() try await analyzer.start(inputSequence: inputSequence) While recording, we capture a screenshot of the focused window using ScreenCaptureKit, run Vision OCR (VNRecognizeTextRequest), extract keywords, and inject them into SpeechAnalyzer as contextual bias: let context = AnalysisContext() context.contextualStrings[.general] = ocrKeywords try await analyzer.setContext(context) This improves accuracy for technical terms and proper nouns visible on screen. If your screen shows "SpeechAnalyzer", saying it out loud is more likely to be transcribed correctly. After transcription, an optional L2 step sends the text through a local LLM (ollama) for spoken-to-written cleanup, then CGEvent simulates Cmd+V to paste into the active app. Meeting Mode Meeting mode forks the same audio stream to two consumers: SpeechAnalyzer — real-time streaming transcription, displayed in a floating NSPanel FluidAudio buffer — accumulates 16kHz Float32 mono samples for batch speaker diarization after recording stops When the user ends the meeting, FluidAudio's performCompleteDiarization() runs on the accumulated audio. We align transcription segments with speaker segments using audioTimeRange overlap matching — each transcription segment gets assigned the speaker ID with the most time overlap. Results export to Markdown. Pitfalls We Hit on macOS 26 1. AVAudioEngine installTap doesn't fire with Bluetooth devices We started with AVAudioEngine.inputNode.installTap() for audio capture. It worked fine with built-in mics but the tap callback never fired with Bluetooth devices (tested with vivo TWS 4 Hi-Fi). Fix: switched to AVCaptureSession. The delegate callback captureOutput(_:didOutput:from:) fires reliably regardless of audio device. The tradeoff is you get CMSampleBuffer instead of AVAudioPCMBuffer, so you need a conversion step. 2. NSEvent addGlobalMonitorForEvents crashes Our global hotkey listener used NSEvent.addGlobalMonitorForEvents. On macOS 26, this crashes with a Bus error inside GlobalObserverHandler — appears to be a Swift actor runtime issue. Fix: switched to CGEventTap. Works reliably, but the callback runs on a CFRunLoop context, which Swift doesn't recognize as MainActor. 3. CGEventTap callbacks aren't on MainActor If your CGEventTap callback touches any @MainActor state, you'll get concurrency violations. The callback runs on whatever thread owns the CFRunLoop. Fix: bridge with DispatchQueue.main.async {} inside the tap callback before touching any MainActor state. 4. CGPreflightScreenCaptureAccess doesn't request permission We used CGPreflightScreenCaptureAccess() as a guard before calling ScreenCaptureKit. If it returned false, we'd bail out. The problem: this function only checks — it never triggers macOS to add your app to the Screen Recording permission list. Chicken-and-egg: you can't get permission because you never ask for it. Fix: call CGRequestScreenCaptureAccess() at app startup. This adds your app to System Settings → Screen Recording. Then let ScreenCaptureKit calls proceed without the preflight guard — SCShareableContent will also trigger the permission prompt on first use. 5. Ad-hoc signing breaks TCC permissions on every rebuild During development, codesign --sign - (ad-hoc) generates a different code directory hash on every build. macOS TCC tracks permissions by this hash, so every rebuild = new app identity = all permissions reset. Fix: sign with a stable certificate. If you have an Apple Development certificate, use that. The TeamIdentifier stays constant across rebuilds, so TCC permissions persist. We also discovered that launching via open WE.app (LaunchServices) instead of directly executing the binary is required — otherwise macOS attributes TCC permissions to Terminal, not your app. Benchmarks We ran end-to-end benchmarks on public datasets (Mac Mini M4 16GB, macOS 26): Transcription (SpeechAnalyzer, AliMeeting Chinese): • Near-field CER 34% (excluding outliers ~25%) • Far-field CER 40% (single channel, no beamforming, >30% overlap) • Processing speed 74-89x real-time Speaker diarization (FluidAudio offline): • AMI English 16 meetings: avg DER 23.2% (collar=0.25s, ignoreOverlap=True) • AliMeeting Chinese 8 meetings: DER 48.5% (including overlap regions) • Memory: RSS ~500MB, peak 730-930MB Full evaluation methodology, scripts, and raw results are in the repo. Open Source The project is MIT licensed: github.com/Marvinngg/ambient-voice It includes the macOS client (Swift 6.2, SPM), server-side distillation/training scripts (Python), and a complete evaluation framework with reproducible benchmarks. Feedback and contributions welcome.
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2d
Ideal and Largest RDMA Burst Width
In macOS Tahoe 26.2 an RDMA capability was added for Thunderbolt-5 interfaces. This has been demonstrated to significantly decrease the latency and maintain bandwidth for "clustered" Apple Silicon devices with TB5. What is the ideal and the maximum RDMA burst width for transfers over RDMA-enabled Thunderbolt-5 interfaces?
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274
Activity
3d
Provide spoken voice search string
Hello, My goal is to enable users to perform a freeform search request for any product I sell using a spoken phrase, for example, "Hey Siri, search GAMING CONSOLES on MyCatalogApp". The result would launch MyCatalogApp and navigate to a search results page displaying gaming consoles. I have defined a SearchIntent (using the .system.search schema) and a Shortcut to accomplish this. However, Siri doesn't seem to be able to correctly parse the spoken phrase, extract the search string, and provide it as the critiria term within SearchIntent. What am I doing wrong? Here is the SearchIntent. Note the print() statement outputs the search string--which in the scenario above would be "GAMING CONSOLES"--but it doesn't work. import AppIntents @available(iOS 17.2, *) @AppIntent(schema: .system.search) struct SearchIntent: ShowInAppSearchResultsIntent { static var searchScopes: [StringSearchScope] = [.general] @Parameter(title: "Criteria") var criteria: StringSearchCriteria static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "Search with MyCatalogApp" @MainActor func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { let searchString = criteria.term print("**** Search String: \(searchString) ****") // tmp debugging try await MyCatalogSearchHelper.search(for: searchString) // fetch results via my async fetch API return .result() } } Here's the Shortcuts definition: import AppIntents @available(iOS 17.2, *) struct Shortcuts: AppShortcutsProvider { @AppShortcutsBuilder static var appShortcuts: [AppShortcut] { AppShortcut( intent: SearchIntent(), phrases: ["Search for \(\.$criteria) on \(.applicationName)."], shortTitle: "Search", systemImageName: "magnifyingglass" ) } } Thanks for any help!
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569
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1w
reinforcement learning from Apple?
I don't know if these forums are any good for rumors or plans, but does anybody know whether or not Apple plans to release a library for training reinforcement learning? It would be handy, implementing games in Swift, for example, to be able to train the computer players on the same code.
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380
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1w
Subject: Technical Report: Float32 Precision Ceiling & Memory Fragmentation in JAX/Metal Workloads on M3
Subject: Technical Report: Float32 Precision Ceiling & Memory Fragmentation in JAX/Metal Workloads on M3 To: Metal Developer Relations Hello, I am reporting a repeatable numerical saturation point encountered during sustained recursive high-order differential workloads on the Apple M3 (16 GB unified memory) using the JAX Metal backend. Workload Characteristics: Large-scale vector projections across multi-dimensional industrial datasets Repeated high-order finite-difference calculations Heavy use of jax.grad and lax.cond inside long-running loops Observation: Under these conditions, the Metal/MPS backend consistently enters a terminal quantization lock where outputs saturate at a fixed scalar value (2.0000), followed by system-wide NaN propagation. This appears to be a precision-limited boundary in the JAX-Metal bridge when handling high-order operations with cubic time-scale denominators. have identified the specific threshold where recursive high-order tensor derivatives exceed the numerical resolution of 32-bit consumer architectures, necessitating a migration to a dedicated 64-bit industrial stack. I have prepared a minimal synthetic test script (randomized vectors only, no proprietary logic) that reliably reproduces the allocator fragmentation and saturation behavior. Let me know if your team would like the telemetry for XLA/MPS optimization purposes. Best regards, Alex Severson Architect, QuantumPulse AI
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200
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2w
Translation framework use in Swift 6
I’m trying to integrate Apple’s Translation framework in a Swift 6 project with Approachable Concurrency enabled. I’m following the code here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/translation/translating-text-within-your-app#Offer-a-custom-translation And, specifically, inside the following code .translationTask(configuration) { session in do { // Use the session the task provides to translate the text. let response = try await session.translate(sourceText) // Update the view with the translated result. targetText = response.targetText } catch { // Handle any errors. } } On the try await session.translate(…) line, the compiler complains that “Sending ‘session’ risks causing data races”. Extended error message: Sending main actor-isolated 'session' to @concurrent instance method 'translate' risks causing data races between @concurrent and main actor-isolated uses I’ve downloaded Apple’s sample code (at the top of linked webpage), it compiles fine as-is on Xcode 26.4, but fails with the same error as soon as I switch the Swift Language Mode to Swift 6 in the project. How can I fix this?
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264
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3w
Apple OCR framework seems to be holding on to allocations every time it is called.
Environment: macOS 26.2 (Tahoe) Xcode 16.3 Apple Silicon (M4) Sandboxed Mac App Store app Description: Repeated use of VNRecognizeTextRequest causes permanent memory growth in the host process. The physical footprint increases by approximately 3-15 MB per OCR call and never returns to baseline, even after all references to the request, handler, observations, and image are released. ` private func selectAndProcessImage() { let panel = NSOpenPanel() panel.allowedContentTypes = [.image] panel.allowsMultipleSelection = false panel.canChooseDirectories = false panel.message = "Select an image for OCR processing" guard panel.runModal() == .OK, let url = panel.url else { return } selectedImageURL = url isProcessing = true recognizedText = "Processing..." // Run OCR on a background thread to keep UI responsive let workItem = DispatchWorkItem { let result = performOCR(on: url) DispatchQueue.main.async { recognizedText = result isProcessing = false } } DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async(execute: workItem) } private func performOCR(on url: URL) -> String { // Wrap EVERYTHING in autoreleasepool so all ObjC objects are drained immediately let resultText: String = autoreleasepool { // Load image and convert to CVPixelBuffer for explicit memory control guard let imageData = try? Data(contentsOf: url) else { return "Error: Could not read image file." } guard let nsImage = NSImage(data: imageData) else { return "Error: Could not create image from file data." } guard let cgImage = nsImage.cgImage(forProposedRect: nil, context: nil, hints: nil) else { return "Error: Could not create CGImage." } let width = cgImage.width let height = cgImage.height // Create a CVPixelBuffer from the CGImage var pixelBuffer: CVPixelBuffer? let attrs: [String: Any] = [ kCVPixelBufferCGImageCompatibilityKey as String: true, kCVPixelBufferCGBitmapContextCompatibilityKey as String: true ] let status = CVPixelBufferCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, width, height, kCVPixelFormatType_32ARGB, attrs as CFDictionary, &pixelBuffer ) guard status == kCVReturnSuccess, let buffer = pixelBuffer else { return "Error: Could not create CVPixelBuffer (status: \(status))." } // Draw the CGImage into the pixel buffer CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(buffer, []) guard let context = CGContext( data: CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(buffer), width: width, height: height, bitsPerComponent: 8, bytesPerRow: CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(buffer), space: CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(), bitmapInfo: CGImageAlphaInfo.noneSkipFirst.rawValue ) else { CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, []) return "Error: Could not create CGContext for pixel buffer." } context.draw(cgImage, in: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: width, height: height)) CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(buffer, []) // Run OCR let requestHandler = VNImageRequestHandler(cvPixelBuffer: buffer, options: [:]) let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest() request.recognitionLevel = .accurate request.usesLanguageCorrection = true do { try requestHandler.perform([request]) } catch { return "Error during OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)" } guard let observations = request.results, !observations.isEmpty else { return "No text found in image." } let lines = observations.compactMap { observation in observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string } // Explicitly nil out the pixel buffer before the pool drains pixelBuffer = nil return lines.joined(separator: "\n") } // Everything — Data, NSImage, CGImage, CVPixelBuffer, VN objects — released here return resultText } `
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151
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Feb ’26
Tensorflow metal: Issue using assign operation on MacBook M4
I get the following error when running this command in a Jupyter notebook: v = tf.Variable(initial_value=tf.random.normal(shape=(3, 1))) v[0, 0].assign(3.) Environment: python == 3.11.14 tensorflow==2.19.1 tensorflow-metal==1.2.0 { "name": "InvalidArgumentError", "message": "Cannot assign a device for operation ResourceStridedSliceAssign: Could not satisfy explicit device specification '/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' because no supported kernel for GPU devices is available.\nColocation Debug Info:\nColocation group had the following types and supported devices: \nRoot Member(assigned_device_name_index_=1 requested_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' assigned_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' resource_device_name_='/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0' supported_device_types_=[CPU] possible_devices_=[]\nResourceStridedSliceAssign: CPU \n_Arg: GPU CPU \n\nColocation members, user-requested devices, and framework assigned devices, if any:\n ref (_Arg) framework assigned device=/job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0\n ResourceStridedSliceAssign (ResourceStridedSliceAssign) /job:localhost/replica:0/task:0/device:GPU:0\n\nOp: ResourceStridedSliceAssign\n [...] [[{{node ResourceStridedSliceAssign}}]] [Op:ResourceStridedSliceAssign] name: strided_slice/_assign" } It seems like the ResourceStridedSliceAssign operation is not implemented for the GPU
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170
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Feb ’26
Core Image for depth maps & segmentation masks: numeric fidelity issues when rendering CIImage to CVPixelBuffer (looking for Architecture suggestions)
Hello All, I’m working on a computer-vision–heavy iOS application that uses the camera, LiDAR depth maps, and semantic segmentation to reason about the environment (object identification, localization and measurement - not just visualization). Current architecture I initially built the image pipeline around CIImage as a unifying abstraction. It seemed like a good idea because: CIImage integrates cleanly with Vision, ARKit, AVFoundation, Metal, Core Graphics, etc. It provides a rich set of out-of-the-box transforms and filters. It is immutable and thread-safe, which significantly simplified concurrency in a multi-queue pipeline. The LiDAR depth maps, semantic segmentation masks, etc. were treated as CIImages, with conversion to CVPixelBuffer or MTLTexture only at the edges when required. Problem I’ve run into cases where Core Image transformations do not preserve numeric fidelity for non-visual data. Example: Rendering a CIImage-backed segmentation mask into a larger CVPixelBuffer can cause label values to change in predictable but incorrect ways. This occurs even when: using nearest-neighbor sampling disabling color management (workingColorSpace / outputColorSpace = NSNull) applying identity or simple affine transforms I’ve confirmed via controlled tests that: Metal → CVPixelBuffer paths preserve values correctly CIImage → CVPixelBuffer paths can introduce value changes when resampling or expanding the render target This makes CIImage unsafe as a source of numeric truth for segmentation masks and depth-based logic, even though it works well for visualization, and I should have realized this much sooner. Direction I’m considering I’m now considering refactoring toward more intent-based abstractions instead of a single image type, for example: Visual images: CIImage (camera frames, overlays, debugging, UI) Scalar fields: depth / confidence maps backed by CVPixelBuffer + Metal Label maps: segmentation masks backed by integer-preserving buffers (no interpolation, no transforms) In this model, CIImage would still be used extensively — but primarily for visualization and perceptual processing, not as the container for numerically sensitive data. Thread safety concern One of the original advantages of CIImage was that it is thread-safe by design, and that was my biggest incentive. For CVPixelBuffer / MTLTexture–backed data, I’m considering enforcing thread safety explicitly via: Swift Concurrency (actor-owned data, explicit ownership) Questions For those may have experience with CV / AR / imaging-heavy iOS apps, I was hoping to know the following: Is this separation of image intent (visual vs numeric vs categorical) a reasonable architectural direction? Do you generally keep CIImage at the heart of your pipeline, or push it to the edges (visualization only)? How do you manage thread safety and ownership when working heavily with CVPixelBuffer and Metal? Using actor-based abstractions, GCD, or adhoc? Are there any best practices or gotchas around using Core Image with depth maps or segmentation masks that I should be aware of? I’d really appreciate any guidance or experience-based advice. I suspect I’ve hit a boundary of Core Image’s design, and I’m trying to refactor in a way that doesn't involve too much immediate tech debt, remains robust and maintainable long-term. Thank you in advance!
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356
Activity
Feb ’26
Tone, Sentiment, language analysis on iPhone - Ideas
Hi everyone, I’m exploring ideas around on-device analysis of user typing behavior on iPhone, and I’d love input from others who’ve worked in this area or thought about similar problems. Conceptually, I’m interested in things like: High-level sentiment or tone inferred from what a user types over time using ML-models Identifying a user’s most important or frequent topics over a recent window (e.g., “last week”) Aggregated insights rather than raw text (privacy-preserving summaries: e.g., your typo-rate by hour to infer highly efficient time slots or "take-a-break" warning typing errors increase) I understand the significant privacy restrictions around keyboard input on iOS, especially for third-party keyboards and system text fields. I’m not trying to bypass those constraints—rather, I’m curious about what’s realistically possible within Apple’s frameworks and policies. (For instance, Grammarly as a correction tool includes some information about tone) Questions I’m thinking through: Are there any recommended approaches for on-device text analysis that don’t rely on capturing raw keystrokes? Has anyone used NLP / Core ML / Natural Language successfully for similar summarization or sentiment tasks, scoped only to user-explicit input? For custom keyboards, what kinds of derived or transient signals (if any) are acceptable to process and summarize locally? Any design patterns that balance usefulness with Apple’s privacy expectations? If you’ve built something adjacent—journaling, writing analytics, well-being apps, etc.—I’d appreciate hearing what worked, what didn’t, and what Apple reviewers were comfortable with. Thanks in advance for any ideas or references 🙏
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613
Activity
Feb ’26
Shortcut - “Use Model” error handling?
I have a series of shortcuts that I’ve written that use the “Use Model” action to do various things. For example, I have a shortcut “Clipboard Markdown to Notes” that takes the content of the clipboard, creates a new note in Notes, converts the markdown content to rich text, adds it to the note etc. One key step is to analyze the markdown content with “Use Model” and generate a short descriptive title for the note. I use the on-device model for this, but sometimes the content and prompt exceed the context window size and the action fails with an error message to that effect. In that case, I’d like to either repeat the action using the Cloud model, or, if the error was a refusal, to prompt the user to enter a title to use. I‘ve tried using an IF based on whether the response had any text in it, but that didn’t work. No matter what I’ve tried, I can’t seem to find a way to catch the error from Use Model, determine what the error was, and take appropriate action. Is there a way to do this? (And by the way, a huge ”thank you” to whoever had the idea of making AppIntents visible in Shortcuts and adding the Use Model action — has made a huge difference already, and it lets us see what Siri will be able to use as well.)
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518
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Jan ’26
Translation Framework: Code 16 "Offline models not available" despite status showing .installed
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!
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450
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Jan ’26
RecognizeDocumentsRequest not detecting paragraphs
I'm trying the new RecognizeDocumentsRequest supposed to detect paragraphs (among other things) in a document. I tried many source images, and I don't see the slightest difference compared to the old API (VN)RecognizedTextRequest Is it supposed to not work or is it in beta?
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325
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Jan ’26
Khmer Script Misidentified as Thai in Vision Framework
It is vital for Apple to refine its OCR models to correctly distinguish between Khmer and Thai scripts. Incorrectly labeling Khmer text as Thai is more than a technical bug; it is a culturally insensitive error that impacts national identity, especially given the current geopolitical climate between Cambodia and Thailand. Implementing a more robust language-detection threshold would prevent these harmful misidentifications. There is a significant logic flaw in the VNRecognizeTextRequest language detection when processing Khmer script. When the property automaticallyDetectsLanguage is set to true, the Vision framework frequently misidentifies Khmer characters as Thai. While both scripts share historical roots, they are distinct languages with different alphabets. Currently, the model’s confidence threshold for distinguishing between these two scripts is too low, leading to incorrect OCR output in both developer-facing APIs and Apple’s native ecosystem (Preview, Live Text, and Photos). import SwiftUI import Vision class TextExtractor { func extractText(from data: Data, completion: @escaping (String) -> Void) { let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest { (request, error) in guard let observations = request.results as? [VNRecognizedTextObservation] else { completion("No text found.") return } let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } completion(recognizedStrings.joined(separator: "\n")) } request.automaticallyDetectsLanguage = true // <-- This is the issue. request.recognitionLevel = .accurate let handler = VNImageRequestHandler(data: data, options: [:]) DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { try handler.perform([request]) } catch { completion("Failed to perform OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } } Recognizing Khmer Confidence Score is low for Khmer text. (The output is in Thai language with low confidence score) Recognizing English Confidence Score is high expected. Recognizing Thai Confidence Score is high as expected Issues on Preview, Photos Khmer text Copied text Kouk Pring Chroum Temple [19121 รอาสายสุกตีนานยารรีสใหิสรราภูชิตีนนสุฐตีย์ [รุก เผือชิษาธอยกัตธ์ตายตราพาษชาณา ถวเชยาใบสราเบรถทีมูสินตราพาษชาณา ทีมูโษา เช็ก อาษเชิษฐอารายสุกบดตพรธุรฯ ตากร"สุก"ผาตากรธกรธุกเยากสเผาพศฐตาสาย รัอรณาษ"ตีพย" สเผาพกรกฐาภูชิสาเครๆผู:สุกรตีพาสเผาพสรอสายใผิตรรารตีพสๆ เดียอลายสุกตีน ธาราชรติ ธิพรหณาะพูชุบละเาหLunet De Lajonquiere ผารูกรสาราพารผรผาสิตภพ ตารสิทูก ธิพิ คุณที่นสายเระพบพเคเผาหนารเกะทรนภาษเราภุพเสารเราษทีเลิกสญาเราหรุฬารชสเกาก เรากุม สงสอบานตรเราะากกต่ายภากายระตารุกเตียน Recommended Solutions 1. Set a Threshold Filter out the detected result where the threshold is less than or equal to 0.5, so that it would not output low quality text which can lead to the issue. For example, let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in if observation.confidence <= 0.5 { return nil } let str = observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string return "{text: \(str!), confidence: \(observation.confidence)}" } 2. Add Khmer Language Support This issue would never happen if the model has the capability to detect and recognize image with Khmer language. Doc2Text GitHub: https://github.com/seanghay/Doc2Text-Swift
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Jan ’26
recent JAX versions fail on Metal
Hi, I'm not sure whether this is the appropriate forum for this topic. I just followed a link from the JAX Metal plugin page https://developer.apple.com/metal/jax/ I'm writing a Python app with JAX, and recent JAX versions fail on Metal. E.g. v0.8.2 I have to downgrade JAX pretty hard to make it work: pip install jax==0.4.35 jaxlib==0.4.35 jax-metal==0.1.1 Can we get an updated release of jax-metal that would fix this issue? Here is the error I get with JAX v0.8.2: WARNING:2025-12-26 09:55:28,117:jax._src.xla_bridge:881: Platform 'METAL' is experimental and not all JAX functionality may be correctly supported! WARNING: All log messages before absl::InitializeLog() is called are written to STDERR W0000 00:00:1766771728.118004 207582 mps_client.cc:510] WARNING: JAX Apple GPU support is experimental and not all JAX functionality is correctly supported! Metal device set to: Apple M3 Max systemMemory: 36.00 GB maxCacheSize: 13.50 GB I0000 00:00:1766771728.129886 207582 service.cc:145] XLA service 0x600001fad300 initialized for platform METAL (this does not guarantee that XLA will be used). Devices: I0000 00:00:1766771728.129893 207582 service.cc:153] StreamExecutor device (0): Metal, <undefined> I0000 00:00:1766771728.130856 207582 mps_client.cc:406] Using Simple allocator. I0000 00:00:1766771728.130864 207582 mps_client.cc:384] XLA backend will use up to 28990554112 bytes on device 0 for SimpleAllocator. Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> import jax; print(jax.numpy.arange(10)) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 5951, in arange return _arange(start, stop=stop, step=step, dtype=dtype, out_sharding=sharding) File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/numpy/lax_numpy.py", line 6012, in _arange return lax.broadcasted_iota(dtype, (size,), 0, out_sharding=out_sharding) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/lax/lax.py", line 3415, in broadcasted_iota return iota_p.bind(dtype=dtype, shape=shape, ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ dimension=dimension, sharding=out_sharding) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 633, in bind return self._true_bind(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 649, in _true_bind return self.bind_with_trace(prev_trace, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 661, in bind_with_trace return trace.process_primitive(self, args, params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/core.py", line 1210, in process_primitive return primitive.impl(*args, **params) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/Users/florin/git/FlorinAndrei/star-cluster-simulator/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/jax/_src/dispatch.py", line 91, in apply_primitive outs = fun(*args) jax.errors.JaxRuntimeError: UNKNOWN: -:0:0: error: unknown attribute code: 22 -:0:0: note: in bytecode version 6 produced by: StableHLO_v1.13.0 -------------------- For simplicity, JAX has removed its internal frames from the traceback of the following exception. Set JAX_TRACEBACK_FILTERING=off to include these. I0000 00:00:1766771728.149951 207582 mps_client.h:209] MetalClient destroyed.
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578
Activity
Dec ’25
MLX C++ API for neural networks
It seems to be that Swift has more APIs implemented than the C++ interface (especially APIs found in the MLXNN and MLXOptimize folders). Is there any intention to implement more APIs for neural networks and training them in the future?
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501
Activity
Dec ’25
MPS Kernel and Sparse Matrix
hello, Do you have any information on the handling of sparse matrix with MPS and PyTorch? release date? ...
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493
Activity
Dec ’25
Apple's AI development language is not compatible
We are developing Apple AI for overseas markets and adapting it for iPhone 17 and later models. When the system language and Siri language do not match—such as the system being in English while Siri is in Chinese—it may result in Apple AI being unusable. So, I would like to ask, how can this issue be resolved, and are there other reasons that might cause it to be unusable within the app?
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2
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1.2k
Activity
Dec ’25
RDMA API Documentation
With the release of the newest version of tahoe and MLX supporting RDMA. Is there a documentation link to how to utilizes the libdrma dylib as well as what functions are available? I am currently assuming it mostly follows the standard linux infiniband library but I would like the apple specific details.
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292
Activity
Dec ’25
Vision face landmarks shifted on iOS 26 but correct on iOS 18 with same code and image
I'm using Vision framework (DetectFaceLandmarksRequest) with the same code and the same test image to detect face landmarks. On iOS 18 everything works as expected: detected face landmarks align with the face correctly. But when I run the same code on devices with iOS 26, the landmark coordinates are outside the [0,1] range, which indicates they are out of face bounds. Fun fact: the old VNDetectFaceLandmarksRequest API works very well without encountering this issue How I get face landmarks: private let faceRectangleRequest = DetectFaceRectanglesRequest(.revision3) private var faceLandmarksRequest = DetectFaceLandmarksRequest(.revision3) func detectFaces(in ciImage: CIImage) async throws -> FaceTrackingResult { let faces = try await faceRectangleRequest.perform(on: ciImage) faceLandmarksRequest.inputFaceObservations = faces let landmarksResults = try await faceLandmarksRequest.perform(on: ciImage) ... } How I show face landmarks in SwiftUI View: private func convert( point: NormalizedPoint, faceBoundingBox: NormalizedRect, imageSize: CGSize ) -> CGPoint { let point = point.toImageCoordinates( from: faceBoundingBox, imageSize: imageSize, origin: .upperLeft ) return point } At the same time, it works as expected and gives me the correct results: region is FaceObservation.Landmarks2D.Region let points: [CGPoint] = region.pointsInImageCoordinates( imageSize, origin: .upperLeft ) After that, I found that the landmarks are normalized relative to the unalignedBoundingBox. However, I can’t access it in code. Still, using these values for the bounding box works correctly. Things I've already tried: Same image input Tested multiple devices on iOS 26.2 -> always wrong. Tested multiple devices on iOS 18.7.1 -> always correct. Environment: macOS 26.2 Xcode 26.2 (17C52) Real devices, not simulator Face Landmarks iOS 18 Face Landmarks iOS 26
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288
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Dec ’25