Comparison

Apperture vs Agent Station

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Apperture

Features
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Apperture lets you see and control one Mac app right from your iPhone — not your whole desktop. Apperture mirrors just the app that matters, full-screen on your phone, so it feels like the app is running in your hand. Traditional screen sharing puts a 27-inch desktop on a 6-inch screen and makes you pan, zoom, and hunt for windows. Apperture takes the opposite approach: pick a single running Mac app and it fills your iPhone with a sharp, low-latency live view sized for the screen you're actually holding. BUILT FOR DEVELOPERS • Mirror the iOS Simulator and it feels native: touches map directly, and rotating your phone rotates the simulated app. • Keep working while your Mac builds and runs. Perfect for agent-assisted coding — let Claude Code or your favorite agent build and launch the app on your Mac, then review and interact with the result from anywhere in the house. • Stream any Xcode-launched Mac app with its real window chrome intact. FULL CONTROL, NOT JUST A VIEW • Tap, drag, long-press for right-click, two-finger scroll — touch input translated naturally to the Mac. • Type with the iPhone keyboard, including full Unicode text entry. • Browse and run the Mac app's real menu bar commands from a searchable, touch-friendly palette. • Send clipboard text securely between devices. • Fit-width, fit-height, and readable-zoom layout modes in portrait and landscape. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No accounts. No cloud relay. Your screen never touches our servers. • Pairing starts with a short-lived QR code on your Mac, and the Mac owner must explicitly approve every phone. • Connections work only over private networks — your Wi-Fi or your own VPN such as Tailscale. Public endpoints are rejected by design. • Every session is encrypted. Pairing trust is stored in the device Keychain and never synced to the cloud. • Review or revoke paired devices anytime. The Mac keeps a local 30-day session history — device, time, and app names only, never keystrokes or screen contents. GOOD TO KNOW • Apperture requires the free companion Mac app from runapperture.com. It's notarized by Apple and distributed directly because it uses Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions the Mac App Store doesn't allow. • Away from home, you'll need a VPN to reach your Mac — Tailscale takes about five minutes to set up, works beautifully, and is free for personal use. • Your Mac does all the work, so it needs to be on, awake, and logged in. Apperture is a viewer and controller for your own Mac, not a way to run Mac apps on iPhone. • Apperture streams one selected window at a time — that focus is the point. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Agent Station

Features
Read full description

Agent Station is an SSH terminal client built for the AI era. Connect to your own servers, manage tmux sessions, and drive AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex with your keyboard or voice — from your commute, a cafe, anywhere. Key features: • Real SSH terminal: modern xterm.js-based UI with large, high-contrast text; multi-hop ProxyJump support reaches hosts behind bastions • AI agent command deck: a project list shows each agent's live status (working / waiting / disconnected); tap in for a live terminal • Voice input: hold to talk, mixed Chinese/English recognition with optional LLM correction, transcripts injected straight into the remote terminal • Persistent tmux sessions: network drops, app switches, device changes — your session survives • Private by design: SSH credentials never leave your device, zero data collection; optional SSH-over-443 tunneling for restricted networks Who it's for: • Engineers running AI agents like Claude Code or Codex on remote servers • Developers who need to check on long-running server tasks from anywhere • Anyone who wants a clean, modern, ad-free SSH client Requirements: you need your own SSH server. Voice input requires your own speech-recognition API key (Volcengine Doubao ASR supported).

Screenshots

Apperture4 screens
Agent Station4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Agent Station at none against Apperture's 1. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Apperture sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Agent Station asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 5 level
Apperture versus Agent Station: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAppertureAgent Station
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB18 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLAND MK 1哇圣 孙

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Apperture

One-time1
  • Early Adopter$24.99
None

Agent Station

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Apperture free?
Apperture is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Agent Station free?
Agent Station is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Apperture or Agent Station have ads?
Neither Apperture nor Agent Station shows ads.

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