Apple opens its platform to any model — Core AI for local LLMs, Foundation Models for the cloud

Beyond Siri, the structurally significant developer news from WWDC is that Apple's platform is now model-agnostic.

The Foundation Models framework becomes a single native Swift API that, via a new LanguageModel protocol, lets you call Claude, Gemini, or any provider that implements it — Gemini is among the first, available through the Firebase Apple SDK. Small developers (App Store Small Business Program, under 2M lifetime downloads) get Apple's next-gen models on Private Cloud Compute at no cloud API cost.

Separately, Core AI is a brand-new framework for running full-scale third-party LLMs locally, optimized for Apple silicon's unified memory and Neural Engine. For engineers, this turns hundreds of millions of devices into a first-class, MCP/ACP-speaking deployment target where you pick the model instead of being handed one.

Sources: FoneArena: Foundation Models gain Gemini support, Apple Newsroom