Foundation Playground is a simple Mac app for exploring Apple’s on-device Foundation Models. Start a conversation, ask about an image, or search your own documents. Responses are generated on your Mac, and your chats and imported files are saved locally.
Foundation Playground on macOS
What you can do
Chat with Apple’s local language model and keep separate, saved conversations.
Attach an image and ask what it shows, read visible text, or inspect a QR code or barcode.
Import text, Markdown, and text-based PDF files, then ask questions that search those local documents.
Choose flowing chat replies or structured answer cards, and see token usage and context size.
Ideas to try
“Summarize these meeting notes and list the next steps.”
“What does the sign in this photo say?”
“Find the warranty details in the PDF I imported.”
“Turn this rough idea into a short, organized outline.”
Requirements and limits
Requires macOS 27 or later, a compatible Apple silicon Mac, Apple Intelligence enabled, and Apple’s on-device model downloaded and ready.
The app does not browse the web or fetch live information. The model can make mistakes, so check important answers.
Conversation context is limited. Older turns may be left out of a long chat, and only the latest attached image is carried into follow-up requests.
Document search works with readable text. Scanned PDFs need OCR before import.
Model availability and download are managed by macOS. The app shows readiness, but cannot show download progress.
