Comparison

Apperture vs BlueTerm

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

Head to head
About

Apperture

Control a single Mac application on your iPhone with a full-screen, low-latency view. This app translates touch input naturally, allowing you to interact with Mac menus, type text, and transfer clipboard content securely. It prioritizes privacy with no accounts or cloud relay, operating solely over private networks.

Highlights
  • Mirror single Mac apps full-screen
  • Natural touch input translation
  • Full Mac menu bar control
  • Secure clipboard sharing
  • Private network connections
  • No account or cloud required
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

BlueTerm

Features
Read full description

BlueTerm turns your phone into a bridge between a Bluetooth serial device and your computer's browser. Connect the device once on the phone, flip one switch, and any browser on the same Wi-Fi becomes a full terminal and live plotter for it. KEY FEATURES - Browser Bridge - one switch serves a terminal and a live plot to any browser on your Wi-Fi. No cable, no driver, nothing to install on the computer. - BLE and classic Bluetooth - Nordic UART devices connect automatically, and a built-in GATT explorer lets you pick the notify and write characteristics yourself when a device uses its own UUIDs. - A terminal that reads like one - timestamps, hex view, selectable line endings (LF / CRLF / CR / none) and one-tap command macros. - Live plotting - numbers your device sends (temp:23.5, rpm=1200, >speed:3.14 or plain CSV) are charted in real time, in the app and in the browser. - Export what you captured - CSV or JSON through the share sheet, so it lands in iCloud Drive, Google Drive or anywhere you choose. - Try it without hardware - a built-in simulator streams sample sensor data, so you can see the whole flow before you own a device. WHY THIS APP? Every other Bluetooth serial app ends inside the phone screen. But the work - reading long logs, comparing graphs, copying values into your notes - happens on a computer, and computers have no standard way to open a Bluetooth serial port. Access to the bridge is protected by a password you set yourself, with a lockout after repeated failures, and the address is served on your local network only. Terms of Use (EULA): https://app.mint-soft.com/apps/blueterm/terms Privacy Policy: https://app.mint-soft.com/apps/blueterm/privacy

Screenshots

Apperture4 screens
BlueTerm4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: BlueTerm at none against Apperture's 1. BlueTerm also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs monthly) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). Apperture's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price and device support there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Apperture ships an update monthly, BlueTerm every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Apperture versus BlueTerm: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAppertureBlueTerm
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 4 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size13 MB46 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLAND MK 1mint-soft

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Apperture

One-time1
  • Early Adopter$24.99
None

BlueTerm

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Apperture free?
Apperture is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is BlueTerm free?
BlueTerm is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Apperture or BlueTerm have ads?
BlueTerm shows ads; Apperture does not.
Which is updated more often, Apperture or BlueTerm?
Apperture ships an update monthly, and BlueTerm every 4 days. Most recently, Apperture was updated on October 25, 2026 and BlueTerm on October 16, 2026.

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