Astropad Workbench vs Obly

Access and control your Mac from anywhere. Workbench is a high-performance remote desktop that lets you connect to your Mac from your iPhone or iPad. Manage your machine, run desktop apps, and check in on long-running tasks while away from your desk. Built by the team behind Astropad Studio and Luna Display, Workbench delivers fast, responsive control with crisp visual and reliable performance across all networks. ————— KEY FEATURES Fast, high-fidelity streamlining. Interact with your Mac in real time with responsive controls and sharp visuals. Voice input. Dictate text from your iPhone or iPad and send it directly to your Mac. Unified display. Consolidate multi-display setups into a single workspace that conforms to the resolution of your mobile device. Apple Pencil support. Use your Apple Pencil like a mouse for precise cursor control when interacting with Mac apps. No-hassle connections. Connect instantly without complicated router/network configurations, port forwarding, or manual setup. Secure by design. Astropad doesn’t capture your screen or track your activity, and sessions are secured by modern end-to-end encryption standards. ————— BUILT FOR REMOTE WORKFLOWS Workbench makes it easy to stay connected to your Mac wherever you are. Monitor running processes, access files, manage remote systems, or check in on tools and software that doesn’t have a mobile app. ————— PRICING Workbench includes a Free plan with 30 minutes of access per day. Upgrade to Unlimited for uninterrupted access (subscription required). ————— SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Mac: macOS 15 or later iPhone: iOS 26 or later iPad: iPadOS 26 or later

A link you share says more than where it points. The moment you press "share", a dozen fields are appended to the address: which account pressed the button, from which app, inside which campaign, and to whom the link was handed. They follow the link, not you, which means they follow everybody you send it to. Obly takes them off. FROM ANY SHARE SHEET Share a link the way you already do, pick Obly, and the clean link goes straight on to the person you were sending it to. There is no screen in between and nothing to confirm. You can install Obly and share a link before you have ever opened it. IN THE APP • Paste a link and it comes back clean, already copied. • Every parameter that came off is named, with what it recorded and who it answered to. Nothing is removed silently. • Read a QR code and Obly says what it contains, out loud, in words. It never opens, dials or applies anything by itself: reading is not following. • Carry your settings to another device with a QR code, with no account and no server in the middle. • The rule list keeps itself current: signed, checked, and switchable off. WHAT IT WILL NOT DO A cleaned link that no longer works is a worse outcome than a tracking parameter left on. Obly removes what it knows, from the sites it knows, and leaves everything else alone. A video timestamp, a page anchor, a product variant, a search query: these stay. NO ACCOUNT, NO TELEMETRY A link you paste never leaves the device. There is no account to create, no analytics, no crash reporting, and nothing to opt out of. Two requests are possible, and each is described where it is switched. Once a day, Obly asks obly.link whether the catalogue of tracking parameters has changed, and checks its signature before using any of it: that request carries no cookie and no identifier, it is the same request for everybody, and turning it off keeps the rules this version shipped with. Expanding a shortened link is the other, and it stays off until you turn it on, because it reveals the address to the shortening service. Nothing you paste is ever part of either. The camera is used on one screen, to read a QR code, at the moment you ask for it. Nothing is recorded and no image leaves the device. FREE AND OPEN SOURCE Obly is published by NoobGang, a non-profit association, under the Apache 2.0 licence. The whole thing is readable at github.com/charlie404/obly, including the catalogue of rules: you can check what it removes, and from where, without taking anyone’s word for it.