Look, I know another Apple Intelligence update sounds like watching paint dry (we’ve been down this road before), but iOS 26’s local AI models are actually being put to work in ways that make me want to dust off my MacBook and start building something. As iOS 26 rolls out globally, developers aren’t just kicking the tires—they’re integrating Apple’s on-device models into apps that feel genuinely useful rather than gimmicky. We’re talking about photo editing apps that can intelligently remove backgrounds without sending your vacation pics to some server farm, writing assistants that work perfectly on airplane mode, and translation tools that don’t need an internet connection to turn your butchered French into something comprehensible. What’s wild about this is the performance. These aren’t neutered versions of cloud models—Apple’s Neural Engine is apparently punching way above its weight class. Developers are reporting response times under 100 milliseconds for text generation and image processing that happens so fast it feels magical (yeah, I know, magic is just sufficiently advanced technology, but still). The real game-changer here is privacy by default rather than privacy as an afterthought. When your personal data never leaves your device, developers can build more intimate, personalized experiences without the compliance headaches or creepy factor. One developer told me their journaling app can now analyze writing patterns and suggest improvements while being completely certain that nobody else—not even Apple—can see what users are writing. Here’s the framework for understanding why this matters: We’re moving from AI as a service to AI as infrastructure. Instead of every app needing its own cloud AI budget and dealing with latency, rate limits, and privacy concerns, developers can just… use the computer that’s already in their users’ hands. It’s like having a GPU for graphics rendering, but for intelligence. The implications ripple out further than just app development. Small teams can now build AI-powered features that would have required venture funding and enterprise partnerships just two years ago. A solo developer can create a sophisticated language learning app, a freelance designer can build an AI-powered creative tool, and indie studios can add intelligent NPCs to games without paying per-inference. Thing is, this isn’t just about cost savings (though developers are definitely happy about that). It’s about enabling a whole category of applications that simply couldn’t exist when every AI interaction required a round trip to the cloud. Real-time creative tools, offline language processing, instant photo analysis—the latency barrier is gone. We’re seeing early hints of what becomes possible when intelligence is as readily available as pixels on a screen. And while Android will inevitably follow with their own local AI push, Apple’s head start here means iOS developers are going to be shipping experiences this year that feel impossibly futuristic to the rest of us still waiting for our ChatGPT responses to load. Sources: TechCrunch Want more than just the daily AI chaos roundup? I write deeper dives and hot takes on my Substack (because apparently I have Thoughts about where this is all heading): https://substack.com/@limitededitionjonathan