9 Secret AI Extensions Apple Won’t Tell You About (And How to Install Them)

The Walled Garden is Hiding Something Incredible

If you’ve been following recent tech keynotes, you might think Apple is just now catching up to the AI revolution with their carefully curated features. But what if I told you that the true power of your M-series Mac or your latest iPhone is actually being held back? Apple loves its walled garden. They prefer safe, slow, and heavily restricted software. Meanwhile, independent developers have quietly built a massive underground ecosystem of incredibly powerful AI extensions that bypass Apple’s native restrictions entirely.

These tools leverage the hidden power of Apple’s Neural Engine and unified memory to do things Siri and native Apple features can only dream of. From giving your computer a photographic memory to running massive uncensored AI models completely offline, these extensions will make your device feel like it came from a decade in the future.

Quick Overview: The Secret AI Arsenal

Extension Name	Primary Superpower	What Native App It Replaces
Raycast AI	System-wide AI command center	Spotlight Search
MacWhisper	Flawless offline transcription	Apple Dictation
Ollama	Run massive LLMs locally	Siri / Web AI
Limitless (Rewind)	Photographic memory for your Mac	None (Entirely new paradigm)
Elephas	Universal AI writing assistant	Apple Writing Tools
S-GPT	Deep iOS system AI integration	Siri on iOS
MacGPT	Global AI text generation overlay	Safari ChatGPT tabs
Arc Max	Browser-level AI automation	Safari
Pieces for Developers	Intelligent snippet & screenshot OCR	Notes / Clipboard

1. Raycast AI: The Spotlight Killer Apple Fears

If you are still hitting Command+Space to open Apple’s Spotlight, you are missing out on the single biggest productivity upgrade available for macOS. Raycast is an ultra-fast launcher that completely replaces Spotlight, but its secret weapon is Raycast AI.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: Apple wants you locked into their search ecosystem. Raycast integrates generative AI directly into the core of your operating system. You can bring up a prompt from anywhere, ask it to write code, draft emails, or summarize the text you currently have highlighted in another app without ever opening a browser.

How to Use It:

• Highlight text in any app, hit a hotkey, and command the AI to rewrite, translate, or explain it.
• Create custom AI commands for repetitive tasks (e.g., ‘Fix the grammar in my clipboard’).

2. MacWhisper: The End of Bad Dictation

Apple’s built-in voice dictation has improved, but it still struggles with accents, technical jargon, and background noise. Enter MacWhisper. This app utilizes OpenAI’s state-of-the-art Whisper technology natively on your Mac.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: It proves that third-party, open-source models can vastly outperform proprietary Apple software. MacWhisper runs entirely locally, meaning it processes audio directly on your Mac’s silicon without sending your private conversations to the cloud.

How to Use It:

• Drag and drop audio files or podcasts into the app for instant, highly accurate transcription.
• Use it for live recording during meetings, instantly generating searchable transcripts.

3. Ollama: Turn Your Mac Into an AI Server

Did you know that an M-series Mac with unified memory is highly coveted by AI researchers? Because the RAM is shared between the CPU and GPU, Macs can run massive, highly complex AI models that would normally require a $10,000 PC.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: Apple strictly curates what models run on your device. Ollama lets you download and run powerful open-source models (like Meta’s LLaMA 3) entirely offline, with zero censorship and absolute privacy.

How to Use It:

• Install Ollama from their website via Terminal.
• Type ‘ollama run llama3’ to instantly start chatting with a world-class AI model that lives purely on your local hard drive.

4. Limitless (formerly Rewind.ai): Photographic Memory

Imagine if your Mac remembered everything you’ve ever seen, said, or heard. Limitless records your screen and audio in the background, compressing the data locally so it barely takes up hard drive space, and uses AI to make your entire digital life searchable.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: The privacy optics are terrifying to a massive corporation like Apple. However, Limitless encrypts all this data locally. You can ask the AI, ‘What was that shoe brand Dave mentioned on our Zoom call last Tuesday?’ and it will instantly pull up the exact moment.

5. Elephas: The Ultimate System-Wide Writer

Apple is slowly rolling out writing tools, but they only work in supported native apps. Elephas is a personal AI writing assistant that hooks directly into your macOS at a low level, working across everything: Mail, Slack, Discord, Word, and Notes.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: It requires bringing your own OpenAI or Claude API key, sidestepping Apple’s subscription services and built-in Apple Intelligence tools.

How to Use It:

• Highlight an email from an angry client, press your custom shortcut, and ask Elephas to ‘reply politely but firmly.’
• Use its ‘Super Chat’ feature to chat with multiple PDFs right from your desktop.

6. S-GPT (Shortcuts GPT): Bypassing Siri Completely

Siri is notoriously behind the curve. S-GPT is an incredibly advanced Apple Shortcut developed by a third party that integrates ChatGPT deeply into iOS. It can access your clipboard, interact with Safari, and even create native Apple Music playlists based on AI prompts.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: It exposes how archaic Siri truly is. S-GPT uses native iOS protocols to make ChatGPT feel like the default voice assistant.

7. MacGPT: Inline AI Everywhere

While similar to Elephas, MacGPT shines in its simplicity. It sits in your menu bar, but its greatest secret feature is ‘Inline’ mode. You can set a trigger word (like ‘+gpt’), and wherever you type that word in macOS, the AI activates.

How to Use It:

• In an iMessage to a friend, type: ‘+gpt write a quick apology for running 10 minutes late’ and hit enter. The text instantly expands into an AI-generated message.

8. Arc Max: AI That Kills Safari

Arc Browser is already revolutionizing how we surf the web, but its ‘Arc Max’ extension suite turns browsing into magic. It uses AI to automatically rename your downloaded files based on their content, summarize web pages instantly, and even answer questions about a page just by hovering over a link.

Why Apple won’t tell you about it: Safari is the crown jewel of Apple’s ecosystem strategy. Arc Max provides an AI experience that Safari simply cannot match.

9. Pieces for Developers: The Offline Copilot

Though targeted at coders, Pieces is an incredible AI tool for any power user. It sits on your machine and uses on-device OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and AI to organize screenshots, code snippets, and text.

How to Use It:

• Take a screenshot of a YouTube video tutorial. Pieces will use AI to read the text in the image, format it perfectly, and make it instantly searchable in your database.

How to Install Unapproved AI Extensions on Mac and iOS

Because many of these tools require deep system access or bypass the App Store entirely, Apple’s Gatekeeper will often try to block you from installing them. Here is how you bypass those restrictions safely for trusted developer apps.

On macOS: Bypassing Gatekeeper

When you download an app like MacWhisper or Ollama from outside the App Store, macOS will flag it. To install it anyway:

• Attempt to open the app. You will get a warning that it cannot be opened.
• Click ‘OK’ or ‘Cancel’.
• Open your System Settings and navigate to Privacy & Security.
• Scroll down to the ‘Security’ section. You will see a message saying the app was blocked from use.
• Click the Open Anyway button. Enter your Mac password, and the app will open and be permanently trusted.

On iOS: Allowing Untrusted Shortcuts (for S-GPT)

To run advanced Shortcuts like S-GPT, you need to ensure your iPhone allows complex shortcut scripts to run. Simply download the Shortcut via the developer’s link, and when iOS prompts you about the permissions it requires (like accessing your clipboard or Apple Music), make sure to click ‘Always Allow’ so the AI can run seamlessly in the background without nagging you every time.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Will installing these AI extensions void my Apple warranty?

Absolutely not. None of these extensions require ‘jailbreaking’ your device. They are either standard applications installed outside the Mac App Store (which is a completely legal and intended feature of macOS) or advanced scripts running inside Apple’s own Shortcuts app. Your warranty is 100% safe.

Does running local AI like Ollama or MacWhisper drain my Mac’s battery?

Because local AI utilizes your Mac’s CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine intensively, it will consume more battery power while it is actively generating text or transcribing audio. However, when these apps are idle, they have a negligible impact on battery life. If you plan to run massive local LLMs for hours, it is recommended to plug your MacBook into power.

Are these secret AI tools safe for my privacy?

Local AI tools like Ollama, MacWhisper, and Limitless are actually significantly better for your privacy than mainstream cloud AI like the default ChatGPT app. Because the models run entirely on your local hardware, your data, voice, and prompts never leave your machine. For tools that require API keys (like Elephas or MacGPT), your data is sent directly to OpenAI or Anthropic without a middleman, which is generally governed by strict API privacy policies that do not train on your data.

Why doesn’t Apple just build these features natively?

Apple prioritizes battery life, foolproof simplicity, and absolute ecosystem control. Features like system-wide text expansion, photographic background recording, or uncensored AI models introduce friction, potential privacy PR nightmares, and complexity that Apple tries to avoid. Third-party developers don’t have these constraints, allowing them to push the absolute limits of Apple Silicon.