Before you dive in: I built addTaskManager to help you actually get things done. It uses a simple framework: Assess what matters, Decide what's next, Do the work. No complex setups—just clarity and action.
When I really started to amplify my work with AI, the most annoying thing was the message: “you have hit your quota, usage reset at 3:00 AM”. That was Claude telling me I have exhausted all my tokens and I cannot work anymore. I had to stop. Go out and take a break. It felt incredibly frustrating but I had no choice, I had to wait until my quota was replenished.
Since then, I started to experiment with on-device inference. Meaning using models on my own machine, and not via APIs, capped by my current subscription. At the moment of writing, this is still prohibitive. My Mac M1 has 16GB of RAM, which makes it barely usable for coding tasks. The best I can do is to use some 3B (3 billion parameters) model, like Qwen, which is roughly usable for task classification, and impossible for real hardcore coding tasks, the kind that I’m using every day.
The Unexpected Discovery
So running inference on my machine basically means 2 things: first, I have to wait until models are becoming more performant (and it seems this is happening now every 6 months or so) and I have to get a better machine, one with at least 64GB of RAM.
But while I was researching all these AI configurations, I accidentally stumbled upon something called Apple Intelligence. It’s a collection of optimized models which are running on device, and can do decent text and image manipulation. They cannot generate code, or high resolution photos, but they are good enough for low res tasks.
Now, if only I can imagine a use case for those…
And here’s how Just 5 Words was born.
AI Storytelling and Image Generation on device, with Apple Intelligence
So, it works like this: the user picks 5 random words from a pre-made list, we feed these words to the on-device text model and instruct it to make a short story out of them – don’t ask me about what prompt(s) I’m using, it took me a lot of time to get them right. Once the story is done, feed the story to the image generation model and build an image for that story. Everything stays on device, no API calls, nothing.
Looks simple.
Well, in the beginning it was. But the more I worked on it, the deeper I went down the rabbit hole. Sometimes I was hitting some model limitations, like the fact that the text model cannot generate output if a person is involved. I don’t know why, but it’s just how it is. And then I realized the image generation could be further optimized by using different styles and perspectives. So I made a few presets for both styles and perspective.
And then there was the UX angle: how much of this is free, and how much is ad-gated?
After a couple of days of back and forth I came up with something not only working decently, but significantly… addictive. I know, I’m the builder, I’m supposed to like what I’m building, but still. There is something really addictive about watching how words are becoming short stories, almost like haikus, and then on top of them ephemeral, gentle images are being generated. It’s… beautiful.
The Challenges
Apple Intelligence is not available on all Apple devices. You need to be on iOS 18.4 or higher, and have an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, and to enable it in Settings. That’s a significant limitation and it was the biggest source of friction during the AppStore review process. Initially, the App Review team tested on simulators and it instantly rejected the app. I had to actually send them a message with instructions: test on devices, guys, Apple Intelligence doesn’t work in simulators.
On top of that, I had to do significant work in the sharing feature. Because what’s a beautiful image on my phone, if no one else can see it? Does it even exist? Joke aside, I built 3 different share sheets, for Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, trying to bank on the short form content that these platforms are prioritizing.
Try It Out!
The app is finally live in AppStore, so you can try it out. Remember, you’ll need an Apple Intelligence ready device AND need to have Apple Intelligence enabled on that device.
Download Just 5 Words for free from here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/just-5-words/id6753934664 – and let me know what you build. Just share on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok and use the hash tag #5Words, I’ll keep an eye on that one.
All in all, this was one of the most fun experiments I did recently.
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