MacPaw Partners With Liquid AI to Bring On-Device Inference to SetApp Developers

Ukraine-based app developer MacPaw is partnering with Liquid AI to power its products with locally hosted models and eventually make the stack available to developers on its SetApp subscription store, TechCrunch reported on August 5.

The Partnership

MacPaw is building a locally hosted version of its AI assistant Eney, unveiled last year, using Liquid AI's on-device inference system called Elix and a local memory system. Liquid AI CEO Ramin Hasani told TechCrunch that the company selects architectures tailored to the hardware before training, aiming for "the most efficient version of intelligence that runs directly on the device."

SetApp's AI Push

MacPaw plans to focus more on AI apps for SetApp, which has more than 150,000 paying users. Once the local-processing architecture is finalized, MacPaw wants to open it to developers so they can use on-device inference inside their own apps. The platform will also provide access to cloud models from companies like Google, acting as a one-stop shop.

Credit-Based Pricing

MacPaw is experimenting with credit-based pricing for the app store, where users perform a certain number of AI operations based on the credits they have and the complexity of the task. The model moves away from flat subscriptions toward usage-based billing for AI features.

Why It Matters

Apple already offers local models to developers, but Hasani says Liquid AI focuses on performance for different capabilities and is building a customization stack that lets models improve with user input. For indie Mac and iOS developers, a SetApp-backed on-device AI platform could lower the barrier to adding private, offline intelligence to their apps.