Ask HN: Do you ever wish you could code from your phone? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you ever wish you could code from your phone?

4 pointsmattaliev10 comments

How often are you away from your computer but want to handle a quick dev task - fix a bug, review a PR, or address a build failure?

Is "being tied to a laptop for all dev work" actually a problem worth solving, or do developers prefer keeping mobile and coding separate?

What scenarios have you encountered where mobile dev capabilities would be genuinely useful?

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JuiceSSH + tailscale has been my go-to. I ssh into my dev workstation that always has a tmux sessions for all of my projects. Its the fastest way to get the same environment from a non-desktop location.

I do a lot of code review and doc/comment updates on my iPhone, using Working Copy and a small bluetooth keyboard. It turns out to be ideal because the small screen size means better mental focus.

I have a vm I connect into via ShellFish (same dev as Working Copy) for when I want to checkout/fix/deploy, but it's a rarity that I need to do that.

I do in effect - using it as my internet connection for a laptop....and I've used ssh on a phone in desperation at times but I think the experience is grim.

I have wanted to use jira etc to look up information and that just ends up being a problem of how one's company decides to limit access.

I have fixed a few one-liners from a browser editor. Anything more complicated and I'd just go fire up the workstation. And for one-liners I wouldn't want anything more sophisticated than a browser.

There is no "phone". It's a computer, that also make calls. It's like any other laptop with a sim card. It just has a smaller screen.

Ye, but in terms of ergonomics they are different. My laptop is heavy and takes a lot of space, personally I am not a fan of taking it everywhere with me. But at the same time, I want to do my dev work

I've used termux + neovim with a code assistant and it works quite well. However the mobile keyboard is not ideal for coding.

True about the keyboard, but I’m thinking more assisted coding. You are not writing code yourself, you’re writing a task, have an agent build it and review it

I can see "vibe-coding" on smartphones taking off, particularly for mobile and web dev. For new younger people.

Impossible to replicate the experience of a desktop, anyone that is accustomed to that... probably no.

Cellular data has been ubiquitous for about 15 years.

This suggests that the market for mobile phone development tools is probably efficient and the supply of existing tools satisfy the existing demand at an equilibrium price.

So as a business, it is probably not a great market to enter. Even worse, mobile applications require third party approval and require unpaid maintenance when mobile platforms change technical details and business details for their app stores.

And of course, the app stores are terrible for discoverability and have high overhead.

Good luck.

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