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React Native Apple

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React Native Apple Provider

@react-native-ai/apple is a community provider that brings Apple's on-device AI capabilities to React Native and Expo applications. It allows you to run the AI SDK entirely on-device, leveraging Apple Intelligence foundation models available from iOS 26+ to provide text generation, embeddings, transcription, and speech synthesis through Apple's native AI frameworks.

Setup

The Apple provider is available in the @react-native-ai/apple module. You can install it with:

<Tabs items={['pnpm', 'npm', 'yarn', 'bun']}> <Tab> <Snippet text="pnpm add @react-native-ai/apple" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="npm install @react-native-ai/apple" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="yarn add @react-native-ai/apple" dark /> </Tab> <Tab> <Snippet text="bun add @react-native-ai/apple" dark /> </Tab> </Tabs>

Prerequisites

Before using the Apple provider, you need:

  • React Native or Expo application: This provider only works with React Native and Expo applications. For setup instructions, see the Expo Quickstart guide
  • iOS 26+: Required for Apple Intelligence foundation models and core functionality

Provider Instance

You can import the default provider instance apple from @react-native-ai/apple:

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';

Availability Check

Before using Apple AI features, you can check if they're available on the current device:

ts
if (!apple.isAvailable()) {
  // Handle fallback logic for unsupported devices
}

Language Models

Apple provides on-device language models through Apple Foundation Models, available on iOS 26+ with Apple Intelligence enabled devices.

Text Generation

Generate text using Apple's on-device language models:

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { generateText } from 'ai';

const { text } = await generateText({
  model: apple(),
  prompt: 'Explain quantum computing in simple terms',
});

Streaming Text Generation

For real-time text generation:

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { streamText } from 'ai';

const result = streamText({
  model: apple(),
  prompt: 'Write a short story about space exploration',
});

for await (const chunk of result.textStream) {
  console.log(chunk);
}

Structured Output Generation

Generate structured data using Zod schemas:

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { generateText, Output } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const result = await generateText({
  model: apple(),
  output: Output.object({
    schema: z.object({
      recipe: z.string(),
      ingredients: z.array(z.string()),
      cookingTime: z.string(),
    }),
  }),
  prompt: 'Create a recipe for chocolate chip cookies',
});

Model Configuration

Configure generation parameters:

ts
const { text } = await generateText({
  model: apple(),
  prompt: 'Generate creative content',
  temperature: 0.8, // Controls randomness (0-1)
  maxTokens: 150, // Maximum tokens to generate
  topP: 0.9, // Nucleus sampling threshold
  topK: 40, // Top-K sampling parameter
});

Tool Calling

The Apple provider supports tool calling, where tools are executed by Apple Intelligence rather than the AI SDK. Tools must be pre-registered with the provider using createAppleProvider before they can be used in generation calls.

ts
import { createAppleProvider } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { generateText, tool } from 'ai';
import { z } from 'zod';

const getWeather = tool({
  description: 'Get current weather information',
  parameters: z.object({
    city: z.string().describe('The city name'),
  }),
  execute: async ({ city }) => {
    return `Weather in ${city}: Sunny, 25°C`;
  },
});

// Create a provider with all available tools
const apple = createAppleProvider({
  availableTools: {
    getWeather,
  },
});

// Use the provider with selected tools
const result = await generateText({
  model: apple(),
  prompt: 'What is the weather like in San Francisco?',
  tools: { getWeather },
});
<Note> Since tools are executed by Apple Intelligence rather than the AI SDK, multi-step features like `maxSteps`, `onStepStart`, and `onStepFinish` are not supported. </Note>

Text Embeddings

Apple provides multilingual text embeddings using NLContextualEmbedding, available on iOS 17+.

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { embed } from 'ai';

const { embedding } = await embed({
  model: apple.embeddingModel(),
  value: 'Hello world',
});

Audio Transcription

Apple provides speech-to-text transcription using SpeechAnalyzer and SpeechTranscriber, available on iOS 26+.

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { experimental_transcribe } from 'ai';

const response = await experimental_transcribe({
  model: apple.transcriptionModel(),
  audio: audioBuffer,
});

console.log(response.text);

Speech Synthesis

Apple provides text-to-speech synthesis using AVSpeechSynthesizer, available on iOS 13+ with enhanced features on iOS 17+.

Basic Speech Generation

Convert text to speech:

ts
import { apple } from '@react-native-ai/apple';
import { experimental_generateSpeech } from 'ai';

const response = await experimental_generateSpeech({
  model: apple.speechModel(),
  text: 'Hello from Apple on-device speech!',
  language: 'en-US',
});

Voice Selection

You can configure the voice to use for speech synthesis by passing its identifier to the voice option.

ts
const response = await experimental_generateSpeech({
  model: apple.speechModel(),
  text: 'Custom voice example',
  voice: 'com.apple.ttsbundle.Samantha-compact',
});

To check for available voices, you can use the getVoices method:

ts
import { AppleSpeech } from '@react-native-ai/apple';

const voices = await AppleSpeech.getVoices();
console.log(voices);

Platform Requirements

Different Apple AI features have varying iOS version requirements:

FeatureMinimum iOS VersionAdditional Requirements
Text GenerationiOS 26+Apple Intelligence enabled device
Text EmbeddingsiOS 17+-
Audio TranscriptioniOS 26+Language assets downloaded
Speech SynthesisiOS 13+iOS 17+ for Personal Voice
<Note> Apple Intelligence features are currently available on selected devices. Check Apple's documentation for the latest device compatibility information. </Note>

Additional Resources