Introducing Poket PC: Mac on Your iPhone, Encrypted
2026-09-26 · Godwin Agbane
I started Poket PC because I wanted my Mac within reach from my phone without signing into another company’s cloud, opening ports on my router, or paying a subscription just to lock the screen from the couch. The name was Pocket Mac until 19 September 2026, when we renamed it to Poket PC so the brand matches poketpc.com and leaves room for hosts beyond the Mac later. This post is what ships today, what we deliberately left out of 1.0, and how the pieces fit.
The problem we kept hitting
Remote desktop tools fall into a few buckets. Enterprise products assume IT departments, accounts, and inventories of machines. Apple’s Screen Sharing is built for the local network; from outside it takes an Apple Account connection, a VPN or port forwarding, and Apple ships no iPhone client for it (Apple). Phone-as-trackpad apps such as Remote Mouse show no screen and work only on the same Wi-Fi or over Bluetooth (Remote Mouse). Both checked on 26 September 2026. Chrome Remote Desktop was a fine free option until Google removed the native iPhone app and pushed people toward a browser session tied to a Google account.
At the same time, Claude Code and local models made the Mac a place where work continues after you walk away—if you can see what happened and nudge it from your phone. We wanted one app that combined:
- A live view of the Mac you own.
- Trackpad and keyboard when the Mac is across the room.
- One-tap tiles for volume, playback, lock and a few apps.
- An assistant on the Mac that keeps running when the phone disconnects.
That list is Poket PC 1.0.
What shipped on 26 September 2026
Mac helper 1.0.0
The menu-bar helper is available now: notarized Developer ID build, Sparkle updates, published on /mac/. It needs Accessibility (pointer, clicks, typing) and Screen Recording (to send the screen to your phone, and to let Ask see it). Pairing is QR plus a six-digit code bound into the Noise IK handshake, with a two-minute single-use window and instant revoke from the menu bar.
iPhone app
The iPhone controller went to TestFlight and App Review the same day. Apple approved it for external testing on 27 September, so the public TestFlight beta is open: the join link is on the beta page. Version 1.0 is still in App Review and not on the App Store yet.
Core experience
- Screen: H.264 at 30 fps, main display only, long edge up to 1600 px. No multi-monitor, no audio, no clipboard sync in 1.0—all planned.
- Trackpad and keyboard: A large trackpad panel; keyboard sends text plus Return and Delete. Modifier shortcuts and arrow keys are planned.
- Deck: Open Music, Safari or Notes; media and brightness keys; sleep, lock, screen saver, Mission Control, Show Desktop. The default deck includes Music, Safari, transport keys, volume, Mission Control, and Lock. The 1.0 deck cannot add a macOS Shortcut tile yet.
- Connectivity: Same Wi-Fi direct path or relay when away. No port forwarding, no VPN, no account.
- Ask: Runs on the Mac through Claude Code (your Claude subscription) or Ollama. Your prompts, and the screenshots Ask needs, go to the model provider you chose; with Ollama they stay on the Mac. Not an Anthropic product; no Sign in with Claude on the phone.
Price
1.0 is free with no ads and no in-app purchases. A Pro plan is planned for a later version. See pricing.
Security we baked in early
We did not treat encryption as a marketing bullet to add later. Sessions are end-to-end encrypted with Noise IK, X25519, and ChaCha20-Poly1305. The relay matches two connections that present the same random token and copies ciphertext; it does not hold keys. Pairing codes are part of the handshake, not a separate PIN screen an attacker can brute force in isolation.
The gaps we document publicly are on /security/: a stolen unlocked phone is still a risk because Face ID gating is planned, and the relay sees metadata (timing, sizes, IP addresses and the routing token), never content. We would rather say that on the site than hide it in a footnote.
What we are not claiming
- Windows host and Android app — in development, not available. An iPad app is planned.
- The web client — a browser client for Chrome, Edge, Brave and Arc is in preview. At launch the published helper (1.0.0) showed its pairing link only as a QR code. Mac helper 1.0.1 added a Copy Link for a Browser button, but we have not yet checked browser pairing end to end, so we do not send new users there yet.
- Official partnerships — Poket PC is built by Innoedge Technologies Ltd. We do not speak for Apple, Google, or Anthropic.
Why the rename matters
“Pocket Mac” described the first host accurately but named only one kind of computer. Poket PC matches the domain and fits a roadmap where the phone stays the controller even if the computer is not always a Mac: a Windows host is in development.
The apps and public pages say Poket PC. The old name survives in a few technical places, such as the pocketmac:// pairing link and the helper’s data folder, so existing pairings keep working.
What comes next
Near-term work includes App Store approval and the features already marked planned: multi-display, clipboard, richer keyboard, Face ID before session open, and a key-entry UI for model providers. We will update the changelog on dated releases only—no speculative dates here.
If you want to try the helper today, start at download. If you care about relay design, read What the relay can and cannot see. Questions and press: support@poketpc.com.
— Godwin Agbane, Innoedge Technologies Ltd
Frequently asked questions
Is Poket PC the same as Pocket Mac?
Yes. We renamed the product to Poket PC on 19 September 2026. The spelling drops the c after the o.
Is version 1.0 free?
Yes. No ads and no in-app purchases. A Pro plan is planned for a later version.