Shellcove · Remote Coding vs TigerText

Shellcove is a secure Mac remote for AI coding, terminal work, demos, and long-running tasks. Control your Mac over LAN or the Internet—even without a public IP or port forwarding—with Remote Desktop, live Window Text, iOS input-method text entry, keyboard, mouse, and clipboard sync. No account, separate VPN app, cloud storage, ads, or analytics. Built for remote coding and agentic coding workflows: run AI agents, Claude Code, codex, aider, terminal sessions, and long Mac tasks, then use your iPhone or iPad to watch output, send prompts, press keys, and keep work moving from across the room. How it works - Open the Shellcove Mac app once. It shows a pairing QR. - In Shellcove on your iPhone or iPad, tap "Scan QR". The devices pin a self-signed TLS certificate and can connect directly or through an end-to-end encrypted relay — no account or login. Key features - Remote Desktop, by touch: stream the Mac desktop as video and drive it directly — tap or drag to move the cursor, pinch to zoom, two-finger scroll, long-press to drag. Use full screen, choose any display, and open Keyboard & mouse for clicks and every key. - Text input via iOS keyboard and input methods: tap the bottom input bar, use iOS Dictation or any third-party keyboard to compose text, then send it to the focused Mac window character by character. It works in any app, including modern terminals. - Keys: six always-visible keys (Esc, Tab, Delete, Space, Next tab ⌃Tab, Enter), plus a More Keys panel with 32 combos for editing, navigation, terminal control, and function keys. - Clipboard sync: the Mac's clipboard mirrors to your paired devices automatically; send your device's clipboard back to the Mac with one tap. - Window Text: open a live, monospaced view of the focused Mac window's text (e.g. a terminal buffer). Full screen keeps AI-agent output and long logs readable; wide lines scroll, no video needed. - Keep screen awake: optionally prevent iPhone auto-lock while Shellcove is active in the foreground, useful for long remote-control or monitoring sessions. - iPhone + iPad, any orientation: the layout adapts to every screen — a single column on phones, a two-column "big screen + controls" layout on iPad, and a landscape mode that rearranges to fit. - Automatic Internet connection: Shellcove prefers direct LAN/VPN paths, then uses embedded Tailcat WireGuard NAT traversal and encrypted relay fallback when the Mac has no public IP. No separate Tailscale installation or account is required. Privacy & networking - Remote-control content stays end-to-end encrypted between your iPhone/iPad and Mac. A relay, when needed, transports encrypted packets and may process connection metadata, but cannot read the screen, text, clipboard, or input. - TLS with certificate pinning. The Mac generates a self-signed certificate at first launch; your device pins its fingerprint at pairing. - No accounts, cloud storage, telemetry, advertising, or tracking. The open-source Tailcat transport is bundled only for encrypted connectivity. - Text is composed by the system keyboard or the input method you choose. Shellcove receives only the final text and does not request microphone or Speech Recognition permission. Best paired with - Remote coding with AI agents in your terminal: Remote Desktop + Window Text + text input + button remote. - Long-running terminal commands where you keep hitting Enter / y / n. - Demos and presentations where you want to drive the Mac from across the room. Requirements - A Mac running macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer with the free companion Shellcove Mac app installed (apps.zhizuzhefu.com/shellcove). - Both devices need Internet access. Same-Wi-Fi and VPN connections remain the fastest paths; no public IP or router port forwarding is required. - One-time Accessibility and Screen Recording permission on the Mac so it can synthesize input and mirror the screen.

TigerText is the easiest way to add alt text to photos on iPhone — and it's now completely free. Point it at any photo and TigerText writes a clear, accurate description of what's in it. The description is saved into the photo's own metadata, so it travels with the image when you post or send it. Mastodon, Bluesky, and any other app that reads standard image metadata will pick it up automatically. Everything happens on your iPhone. No internet connection. No account. No ads. No tracking. WHY ALT TEXT MATTERS Alt text is how a photo becomes readable to someone using a screen reader. Without it, an image is just "photo" — no content, no context. Writing it by hand for every picture is real work, and that's why so many images go undescribed. TigerText does the first draft in seconds so you can post with a description instead of without one. FULLY OFFLINE, GENUINELY PRIVATE TigerText runs a vision-language AI model that ships inside the app. Your photos are never uploaded, never sent to a server, and never seen by anyone but you. It works on a plane, in a basement, or with your phone in airplane mode — because there's nothing to connect to. Privacy here isn't a policy promise. It's how the app is built. There is no server to trust, because there is no server. BUILT WITH THE COMMUNITY IT SERVES TigerText was shaped by feedback from blind and low-vision users, and it's designed to be used entirely with VoiceOver — not merely to pass an accessibility checklist. Every control is labeled, every action is announced, and the whole flow works without ever needing to see the screen. That includes the parts people usually forget: you can hear the description read aloud before you save it, edit any wording you disagree with, and know immediately whether a photo already has alt text. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Describe any photo in your library, one at a time or in batches • Hear any description read aloud before you commit to it • Edit the wording — it's your description, the AI just drafts it • See at a glance which photos already have alt text and which don't • Add descriptions to animated GIFs without losing the animation • Send photos straight from the Photos share sheet • Share a photo with the description already embedded FREE, AND STAYING THAT WAY Every feature is free forever. There is no paid tier, no subscription, no in-app purchase, no locked content, and no ads. TigerText uses the Qwen2-VL model (Apache 2.0) running through Apple's MLX framework. The bundled model is verified with a SHA-256 integrity check on every new version, so you always run the genuine, untampered model. A NOTE ON THE DOWNLOAD SIZE TigerText is a big download, and that is the whole point. The entire AI model lives inside the app instead of on a server somewhere. Nothing is streamed, nothing is fetched, and none of the work happens on someone else's computer. Download it once and it works forever. On a plane. In a tunnel. In a basement with no signal. On a trip with no data plan. There is no server to go down, no API to get shut off, no subscription to lapse, and no spinner while something uploads. Your photos are never part of anybody's dataset, because they never leave your phone. Most apps that describe images send your pictures away to do it. TigerText carries the whole thing with you instead. That's what makes TigerText a true offline utility: the big download is the feature. Install it once over Wi-Fi, and describing a photo never needs a network again.