On-device, native image generation for iPhone — a SwiftUI app that runs text-to-image diffusion models entirely on the device with MLX Swift. No cloud, no accounts; your images never leave the phone.
The mobile sibling of Alis Studio (the Mac desktop app), sharing its design language — clay accent, cream surfaces, the pine mark, light + dark.
| Generate | Gallery |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Real images generated on an iPhone 16 Pro Max — SDXL-Turbo, 512², 4 steps.
Important
An 8 GB-class iPhone is required. The app runs a multi-gigabyte diffusion model fully in memory; on devices with less than 8 GB of RAM it shows an "unsupported device" screen and will not generate (the OS would otherwise kill it mid-generation). This is enforced at runtime.
| Minimum | |
|---|---|
| Device RAM | 8 GB — iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, or newer. Not supported: iPhone 15 / 15 Plus (6 GB), SE, and all older models. |
| iOS | 17.0 or later |
| Free storage | ~8 GB for SDXL-Turbo (≈7 GB weights + ≈0.3 GB fp16-fix VAE), or ~2.5 GB for SD-Turbo. Downloaded once, then cached. |
| Network | Required on first run to download model weights from Hugging Face. Keep the screen on — the download is several GB and the app is killed if it's suspended mid-download. |
| Hardware | A physical iPhone. MLX has no Metal backend in the iOS Simulator, so generation only runs on a real device. |
| Model | Config | Peak resident | Latency (512²) | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDXL-Turbo | 4-bit UNet · sdxl-vae-fp16-fix · 2–4 steps |
~4.25 GiB | ~10–13 s/img | highest (photorealistic) |
| SD-Turbo | 4-bit UNet · fp16 VAE · 4 steps | ~3.4 GiB | ~6 s/img | good, fastest |
Both stay well under the 8 GB device's jetsam limit at 512². The memory tuning came from on-device measurement: the VAE decode activation is the memory peak, so SDXL loads the fp16-stable VAE (the stock SDXL VAE NaNs in fp16); the UNet is 4-bit; and the MLX cache is cleared between generations to stop it accumulating.
- Prompt → 512² image, fully on-device (MLX Metal)
- Model picker — SDXL-Turbo / SD-Turbo
- Adjustable steps; Stop (cancels mid-generation)
- Gallery — generations saved on device; reuse-prompt / delete
- Light + dark, matching Alis Studio
- Runtime device check (blocks unsupported <8 GB hardware)
There's no App Store build — you install it yourself from source. A free Apple ID is enough (no paid Developer Program needed).
- A Mac with Xcode 16+ installed.
- An 8 GB iPhone (iPhone 15 Pro / 16 / 16 Pro or newer) on iOS 17+, and a USB cable.
- An Apple ID (free) and a Wi-Fi connection (first launch downloads several GB).
-
Get the project and generate the Xcode project.
git clone https://github.com/avlp12/alis-studio-mobile.git cd alis-studio-mobile brew install xcodegen # one-time xcodegen generate # creates AlisStudioMobile.xcodeproj open AlisStudioMobile.xcodeproj
-
Sign in with your Apple ID in Xcode → Settings (⌘,) → Accounts → + → Apple ID. This creates a free "Personal Team."
-
Set the signing team. Select the AlisStudioMobile target → Signing & Capabilities → check Automatically manage signing → pick your Personal Team. If you see "bundle identifier is not available," change Bundle Identifier to something unique (e.g.
com.<yourname>.alisstudiomobile). -
Enable Developer Mode on the iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode → On → restart when prompted.
-
Plug the iPhone into the Mac with USB and tap Trust on the phone if asked. In Xcode's toolbar, select your iPhone as the run destination.
-
Build & run (⌘R). The first build takes a few minutes (it compiles MLX).
-
Trust the developer certificate (first run only): on the iPhone, Settings → General → VPN & Device Management → tap your Apple ID under "Developer App" → Trust. Launch the app again.
-
First launch downloads the model (several GB from Hugging Face) — keep the screen on until it finishes, or iOS will suspend and kill the download. After that, the model is cached and launches are fast.
Find your device id with xcrun devicectl list devices and your team id in
Xcode → Settings → Accounts.
xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -project AlisStudioMobile.xcodeproj -scheme AlisStudioMobile \
-configuration Release -destination 'platform=iOS,id=<DEVICE_ID>' \
-allowProvisioningUpdates CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Automatic DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=<TEAM_ID> build
xcrun devicectl device install app --device <DEVICE_ID> \
~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/AlisStudioMobile-*/Build/Products/Release-iphoneos/AlisStudioMobile.app- Apps signed with a free personal team expire after 7 days — re-run from Xcode (or rebuild + reinstall) to renew. A paid Developer account removes this.
- A free team is limited to 3 sideloaded apps at a time.
- Reinstalling/renewing needs the Mac — the app can't update itself over the air.
MIT — see LICENSE. Sources/StableDiffusion/ is adapted from Apple's
mlx-swift-examples (MIT).