# Sidecar ML — Local AI server on your phone

> Local AI server on your phone (iPhone/iPad app by Anders Fog Bunzel.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sidecar-ml/id6793297547 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Anders Fog Bunzel](https://appshunter.io/developer/1850326207)
- Category: Developer Tools, Utilities
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 5 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-07-26
- Data updated: 2026-07-30
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/sidecar-ml/id6793297547/reviews.md

## What is Sidecar ML?

Turn your iPhone into a private, on-device AI server for your whole network.

Sidecar ML runs a lightweight HTTP server on your iPhone that exposes Apple's built-in machine-learning models to any device on your local network. Tap Start Server, scan the QR code, and your Mac, PC, Raspberry Pi, or browser can call powerful on-device AI over plain REST — no cloud, no accounts, no API keys, no usage fees, and no data leaving your network.

Everything runs on the phone. Nothing is uploaded to a server and there's nothing to pay for. (The one exception, music recognition, matches against Apple's catalog and tells you so up front.)

ONE IPHONE, A DOZEN AI CAPABILITIES

• Chat with the on-device large language model through a chat-completions endpoint that's compatible with the popular OpenAI API format — streaming, JSON mode, and structured output included. Point existing tools and SDKs at your phone and they just work.
• Generate images from a text prompt in a choice of art styles.
• OCR — pull text out of photos, receipts, and screenshots with per-line boxes and multi-language support.
• Read barcodes and QR codes (EAN, Code128, and more).
• Classify images across roughly a thousand categories, or produce image embeddings for similarity search.
• Remove backgrounds and isolate subjects or people as clean PNG cut-outs.
• Detect faces and facial landmarks, body pose, and hand pose.
• Scan documents with automatic edge detection and perspective correction.
• Convert speech to text and text to speech, with a wide range of voices (including Personal Voice).
• Translate text between languages completely offline.
• Analyse text: language, sentiment, named entities, tokens, and embeddings.
• Classify sounds across hundreds of categories, or identify the music that's playing.

BUILT FOR DEVELOPERS AND MAKERS

• Clean REST + Server-Sent Events API — call it from curl, Python, JavaScript, or any HTTP client.
• Chat endpoint compatible with the OpenAI format, so many existing tools and SDKs work unchanged.
• Automatic discovery on your network via Bonjour.
• Honest capability reporting: ask the server what it can do and it tells you exactly what's available on your device, and why.
• Optional bearer-token authentication to lock the server down on shared networks.

FREE WEB CONSOLE AND CODE EXAMPLES

A ready-to-use web console — plus Python examples, a command-line client, and full API documentation — is free and open-source. Download the single-file console and browse the source here:

https://github.com/AndersFB/Sidecar-ML-Console/

Open the console in any browser, enter your phone's address, and try every capability with a friendly UI — nothing to install.

GOOD TO KNOW

• The on-device large language model and image generation require an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone. The other capabilities run on a much wider range of devices.
• The server runs while the app is in the foreground; a keep-awake option helps during longer sessions.
• Some features (offline translation language pairs and certain speech models) download their models on first use.

Turn the iPhone in your pocket into a private AI endpoint for your projects, your home lab, and your prototypes — Sidecar ML.


## Version history (last 2 releases)

### 1.2 — 2026-07-29

• Added a built-in playground — try every feature natively.
• Added live camera effects for faces and voice.
• Added camera input and photo generation to screens.
• Fixed sideways, zoomed camera preview and mismatched photos.
• Improved battery use when the dashboard sits idle.

### 1.1 — 2026-07-26

No release notes.

## More apps by Anders Fog Bunzel

- [IGP Track](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/igp-track/id6754825801)
- [My Monthly Budget](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/my-monthly-budget/id6761712787)

All apps by Anders Fog Bunzel: https://appshunter.io/developer/1850326207

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-07-30.*