alt Hacker NewsIf this isn't open source/weights and can't run locally, I don't see how this is a replacement for Whisper or other open models, e.g. within Home Assistant.
Replies
edude03 • yesterday at 5:00 PM
It's not open weight, but the point is to be an on device (and thus local, privacy preserving) option. The article mentions that as the caveat
> What this means if you just want good transcription
> If you are on a current iPhone or Mac, the best on-device transcription engine for English is already in the operating system, and the private option is no longer the compromise option
➕ show 1 reply
wahnfrieden • yesterday at 5:06 PM
It is local
The appeal is that users only have to download it once across all apps that use it. Instead of convincing a user to give a couple gigs for just your one app
It's a local model so it's essentially open weight such that you could feasibly export it somehow since it's already on the laptop somewhere. Apfel is a wrapper app like ChatGPT but using Apple Foundation Models, I assume something similar will happen with this transcription model.
https://apfel.franzai.com/