Build your own Siri locally and on-device
24 comments
·May 12, 2025catapart
Man, I'd really love it if this were just a product/app I could download and use a UI to configure/teach.
But this guide gives me what I need to make that, I think, so a big thank you for this!
jtr1
I’ve noticed recently (maybe I missed an announcement) that Siri now functions locally for at least some commands. Try putting an Apple watch in airplane mode and asking it to set a timer or reminder
thedeep_mind
This is great, thanks for putting this together.
Haven't followed it through yet, but does this model run successfully on an iPhone?
My 9 year old ran a Qwen 0.6B model using ollama quite well, anything else was too slow to offer a good UX.
parpfish
Oh, a nine year old PHONE.
I was thinking there was a fourth grader out there deploying models when at that age I was still learning multiplication tables.
NetOpWibby
My son just turned 9 today so I was like, "Wow! I wonder if my kid would be interested in doing this?"
SparkyMcUnicorn
MLC[0] indicates that it can run models in the 8B range on iOS, but 1-3B sounds more reasonable to me.
[0] https://llm.mlc.ai/docs/deploy/ios.html#bring-your-own-model
cadamsdotcom
Why haven’t Apple taken a look at the data then hardcoded handlers for the top ~1000 usages???
mrcwinn
Cool project and nice write-up!
mystified5016
Does Apple even allow you to replace Siri with another assistant? For the longest time on android, all non-Google assistants were crippled by not being able to listen in the background or use the assistant hardkey, gestures, or shortcuts. I'm not sure if the Google assistant still has privileges others don't, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least.
matthewfcarlson
Part of the problem is the wake word “hey siri” is actually handed by a separate coprocessor (AOP) with the model compiled into the firmware. While anything is technically possible, it isn’t as simple as just letting the google app run in the background since the AP is asleep when any of these gesture happen. You could probably setup the action button on the side to open an assistant, but that’s going to be a less pleasant experience (app might not be open, etc).
Details are listed below
kimixa
Same with android phones - a super-specific hardcoded phrase is much easier to work in the power budgets required for an "always on" part of the device.
It's why a manufacturer (like Samsung) can change that sort of thing on their devices, but it's not realistically something an end user (or even an app) can customize in software. It's not some "arbitrary" limitation.
layer8
I think people would be fine with having to call it Siri if only they could replace the actual assistant.
jedisct1
More or less. This is what Perplexity does.
bronco21016
I saw an article about this and downloaded the Perplexity app but I was unable to figure out if this was true? Do I need a paid tier? I just quickly worked through the free sign up and couldn't sort it out. The demo looked really slick. Is it worth pursuing?
caust1c
So build your own crappy agent-assistant?
In earnest though, I'm certain we'll see a community replacement of Siri by end-of-year if the iPhone permissions model allows it or there's some workaround. IDK what the limitations are here but I'm eagerly awaiting the community to step in where Siri has failed.
dang
> So build your own crappy agent-assistant?
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Your comment would be fine without that first bit.)
Ancapistani
The assistant is only half the story here. This looks like a great, well-defined tutorial project to learn how to put this stuff together locally.
andrewmcwatters
Crappy? Dude, Siri at one point couldn't even tell you what today's date was. The bar is on the ground.
0cf8612b2e1e
I do not know if it is because I have been trained to make simple requests, but there are only a half dozen things I would verbally ask a robot.
- time of day
- calendar date
- weather
- set a timer
- simple math calculation
That’s 90% of the functionality right there.
andrewmcwatters
Funny you mention this. My usage is the same. I suspect we’ve all been trained to expect little-to-nothing from these assistants.
jihadjihad
And incredibly it manages to get those wrong a non-trivial amount of the time.
4ndrewl
Think Different
carmelion
[flagged]
I love the idea and I would like to build something like this. But the few attempts i have made using whisper locally has so far been underwhelming. Has anyone gotten results with small whisper models that are good enough for a use case like this?
Maybe I've just had a bad microphone.