Gemma 4 iPhone app
Shares rank 18 of 27 local LLM runners by recommenders
Free app that runs Google's Gemma 4 model on iPhone with easy setup and no sign-in. Critics report crashes and slowdowns in long chats.
Free app that runs Google's Gemma 4 model on iPhone with easy setup and no sign-in. Critics report crashes and slowdowns in long chats.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy install and model download
“installs as easily as Chrome, downloads a model as easily as it could be”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Gemma 4 12B: A unified, encoder-free multimodal model” “easiest setup than anything else i've tried”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone” Shows local AI's potential and tool use
“this app lowers the barrier to entry significantly and provides a glimpse into what’s possible locally, on device”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone” “the UX is too dumbed down but knowing there is a run_js tool there is a lot that can be done here”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Crashes on startup or after chats
“Crashes for me on a couple of different iDevices after only a few 2-3 chats.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone” “downloading and running the app and it crashing on startup”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone” Google privacy policy and sign-in concerns
“When I saw it wants me to "agree" to Google's "privacy policy", I deleted the app on the spot.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone” “The description says it's private, but the legalese it makes you agree to makes no promise.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Gemma 4 on iPhone”
Other local LLM runners people recommend
The four most recommended other local LLM runners, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| llama.cpp | 471 | 109 | 81% | 13 | 1 yr4 owners | Approved |
| Ollama | 350 | 247 | 59% | 12 | 1.5 yrs8 owners | — |
| LM Studio | 217 | 74 | 75% | 12 | 3 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| DS4 by antirez | 109 | 20 | 84% | 7 | 1 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Gemma 4 iPhone appThis page | 7 | 6 | 54% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“installs as easily as Chrome, downloads a model as easily as it could be”
“They still don’t render the markdown (or LaTeX) it outputs.”
“it is super fast on my 16 Plus, but with longer messages it can slow down a LOT”
“yet don't include the IOS source, sneaky”
“this app lowers the barrier to entry significantly and provides a glimpse into what’s possible locally, on device”
“When I saw it wants me to "agree" to Google's "privacy policy", I deleted the app on the spot.”
“the UX is too dumbed down but knowing there is a run_js tool there is a lot that can be done here”
“downloading and running the app and it crashing on startup”
“easiest setup than anything else i've tried”
“Crashes for me on a couple of different iDevices after only a few 2-3 chats.”
“The description says it's private, but the legalese it makes you agree to makes no promise.”
“This is fun, FYI you don’t have to sign in/up with a Google account.”
“It's completely vibe coded, doesn't even run on my Mac”
“The scrolling is also unusable during generation.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.