Ichi

Ichi (一) means "one" in Japanese, representing this project to unify conversational AI across Apple platforms. One of the personal aim was to create a Japanese tutor to learn basics of the language for my trip to Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Support

Love this project? Check out my books to explore more of AI and iOS development:

• Exploring AI for iOS Development
• Exploring AI-Assisted Coding for iOS Development

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Overview

Ichi is an experimental project that explores conversational AI capabilities across iOS, macOS, and visionOS. The project's name is inspired by a Japanese woman I met at a conference, who ignited the spark into coding again.

Last September, using online providers for speech-to-speech was expensive, and I wanted to take the on-device route instead. Local LLMs are still not there yet, but one day.

Features

• Privacy-First: All processing happens on-device - no data leaves your device
• Conversational AI: Powered by on-device LLMs (Qwen model)
• Speech Recognition: Real-time speech-to-text conversion
• Text-to-Speech: Natural voice synthesis using Kokoro TTS
• Cross-Platform: Supports iOS, macOS, and visionOS
• Beautiful UI: Modern SwiftUI interface with smooth animations
• Onboarding: Guided setup with model downloads