From the build log
Technical articles on how Cairn Journal is built — on-device speech transcription, AI mood mentoring, and the engineering trade-offs behind a privacy-first journal.
2026-10-04
STT for an Unsupported Language on iPhone – Part 1
Two years ago, Apple made it possible to run a local large language model (LLM) directly on macOS, iOS and iPadOS devices.
2026-10-04
STT for an Unsupported Language on iPhone – Part 2
In the first part, I described why I can't simply turn on Apple Intelligence and dictate my journal in Czech, and how I arrived at the Whisper model.
2026-10-04
STT for an Unsupported Language on iPhone – Part 3
In the second part, I described why I chose a model running directly on the phone and what the solution looks like in practice.