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Comment by jlgaddis | Hacker News Reader

Just this morning I realized I had a need for a decent SSH client for iOS, although I don't need something that includes vim, clang, and Lua, Python, and C, though.

That's extreme overkill for my needs -- I'd just like the ability to log in to a few hosts (preferably using public key authentication!) and run various commands just like I normally do in a terminal.

If anyone has any "favorites" they recommend, I'd be interested in hearing about them. I'd prefer something open-source (out of principle) but I'm certainly not opposed to paying a reasonable amount.

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I love Blink, and it is open-source.

https://blink.sh/

I want to try it but $20 for a shell seems like a tough sell!

It's definitely steep, but if you are doing serious work in the shell on iOS, it's worth it IMHO. I was traveling by motorcycle for 6 months and did all my dev work on an iPad using emacs over mosh on Blink, and it was a great experience.

It’s open source if that makes you reconsider. It’s definitely worth supporting them IMO.

You can build it yourself from source with Xcode.

But this is one of the apps I cannot believe is not subscription-based. Author keeps up with changes in iOS and improves constantly.

The cost is justified too as the market for terminal emulators is much smaller than general iOS audience.

I'm glad it isn't, that would effectively price me out. The current price point is quite steep just for being able to check on my private server on the go (I don't earn a penny from it, it's just for fun and toying around), a subscription would be a dealbreaker. A dozen apps for the price of a coffee a month ends up being real money over the long run, and not everyone who buys this sort of thing has company money to spend.

I built it from source to see if it was what I needed and it so scratched my itch that I paid the $20 as a contribution.

I don't do any professional development on my iPad, I just like having the ability to mosh/ssh back into my machines at home to run a script or push a quick edit to my personal github.

Could not get this connected to my cluster, oddly. Maybe something to do with its 2 factor authentication process.

How about Prompt from Panic? https://panic.com/prompt/

Upvote for Panic. I’ll always upvote those guys. Prompt is great.

You should definitely try other terminals.

Unless I'm missing something, Prompt can only connect to other servers.

This connects, in shell mode, to your iOS device.

Isn't this more like a sandbox that lets you play in the sandbox with a CLI? I don’t think it actually gives you shell access to your iOS device, just a shell interface to its own program (and the other commands it supports).

This used for years

Prompt, by Panic Software, the authors of Transmit and Coda. They even managed to get rid of disconnections while in the background, admittedly in a hacky way using location services.

I had no idea this worked. It’s a little odd to have to give my SSH client location access, but I just tested this and it totally works.

I have a copy of both Blink and Prompt. Normally I use Blink more, but this keep alive is a really handy feature.

There is geo track command in blink. It will also keep connections.

This is a completely undiscoverable feature. It isn’t mentioned anywhere I saw and isn’t part of the normal config screen. I’m happy it’s there, but now I’m curious what else I was missing...

Thanks!!

accurate and performant rendering (we use reacts), external display support (mirror and standalone shell), KeyCast (display pressed keys, useful for screencasts and live streaming), bundled beautiful fonts (Pragmata, Iosevka, Fira Code), full width row of additional keys on software kb (cmd is there too for cmd-c/v/w/t etc), smooth scrolling (in tmux/vim/emacs too), trackpad support (within tmux panels/vim/emacs too), links detection in selection, selection manipulation via kb (vim, emacs and arrows mode), accessibility (voice over), dictation input and IME support, port forwarding and proxy command support, images view and persistent mosh connections (you can reboot device and get connection back)

Another vote for Blink. I’ve used it for over a year with very few issues. They consistently push out bug fixes and add well thought out features. It’s a joy.

Blink is mosh based... works great

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