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Show HN: I built an AI Agent that uses the iPhone

https://github.com/rounak/PhoneAgent
48•rounak•1d ago
It’s powered by OpenAI’s GPT 4.1 model.

Uses Xcode UI tests + accessibility tree to look into apps, and performs swipes, taps, etc to get things done.

Comments

simianwords•1d ago
Interesting project, if anything it shows what Android or IOS may support in the near future.

>iOS apps are sandboxed, so this project uses Xcode's UI testing harness to inspect and interact with apps and the system. (no jailbreak required).

What are practical limitations of this? Maybe you can't submit this app to the store?

sunbum•1d ago
It's not an app that runs on device at all. It's an program that runs on your mac.
M4v3R•1d ago
I underground that this is nothing more than a proof of concept but imagine what Apple itself could do with this idea if they truly embraced the concept and cut all the internal red tape that currently prevents them from doing so. This is what “Apple Intelligence” should be but never materialized (and at this point I have doubts it ever will, although I am curious what they’ll show off at WWDC this year).
jen729w•1d ago
> I am curious what they’ll show off at WWDC this year

Fool me once...

BossingAround•1d ago
> I am curious what they’ll show off at WWDC this year

Apparently, not much is planned, per [1]. I'd be very cautious about AI agents like these; from a user level, this has so many security vulnerabilities.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/30/the-macrumors-show-last...

totetsu•1d ago
> "It would need access to our browser, an ability to drive that. It would need our credit card information to pay for the tickets. It would need access to our calendar, everything we're doing, everyone we're meeting. It would need access to Signal to open and send that message to our friends," she said. "It would need to be able to drive that across our entire system with something that looks like root permission, accessing every single one of those databases, probably in the clear because there's no model to do that encrypted."

Whittaker added that an AI agent powerful enough to do that would "almost certainly" process data off-device by sending it to a cloud server and back.

"So there's a profound issue with security and privacy that is haunting this sort of hype around agents, and that is ultimately threatening to break the blood-brain barrier between the application layer and the OS layer by conjoining all of these separate services, muddying their data, and doing things like undermining the privacy of your Signal messages," she said.

--Meredith Whittaker earlier this year.

katsura•1d ago
I've been thinking about building a robot that can use a camera to look around, use motors to go in different directions, and when it sees a human, it could also ask if they've seen John Connor, and if the person is being "difficult" then press a button to terminate them.

The interesting thing is that the three laws of robotics says that robots shouldn't harm humans, but I don't really see a way for an AI agent to understand that by "pressing a button" they actually hurt the human.

voidUpdate•1d ago
You have stumbled upon the point of the three laws of robotics, which is that they are part of a series of stories showing why they don't necessarily work
gryfft•1d ago
To wit, the three laws are actually a formulation of three laws of tool design: a tool must not harm its user; a tool must be fit for purpose and do what the user wishes, as long as that doesn't harm the user; and a tool should be sturdy and reusable so long as that doesn't interfere with the tool's safety or usability.

These design principles make sense when you are talking about a non-sentient object, but intelligent, adaptable beings cannot be so easily constrained.

rvnx•1d ago
At some point (~50 years from now ?) they could even form their own type of life. If they can mine for resources, think, do actions and reproduce. "synthetic life"
diggan•1d ago
> If they can mine for resources, think, do actions and reproduce. "synthetic life"

Essentially the story of the Horizon series of video games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_(video_game_series), and I'm sure many other sci-fi novels.

rvnx•1d ago
Or like in Futurama, the apparition of "Robosexuals"
astrodude•1d ago
in case if anyone wants to understand how it works: https://github.com/kiranz/phoneagent/blob/add-docs/explanati...

Show HN: AirAP AirPlay server - AirPlay to an iOS Device

https://github.com/neon443/AirAP
63•neon443•46m ago•4 comments

Show HN: An Alfred workflow to open GCP services and browse resources within

https://github.com/dineshgowda24/alfred-gcp-workflow
17•dineshgowda24•1h ago•2 comments

Show HN: Controlling 3D models with voice and hand gestures

https://github.com/collidingScopes/3d-model-playground
68•getToTheChopin•6h ago•13 comments

Show HN: Localize React apps without rewriting code

https://github.com/lingodotdev/lingo.dev
38•maxpr•3h ago•31 comments

Show HN: I wrote a Java decompiler in pure C language

https://github.com/neocanable/garlic
127•neocanable•8h ago•57 comments

Show HN: PinSend – Share text between devices using a PIN(P2P, no login)

https://pinsend.app
44•avovsya•6h ago•20 comments

Show HN: .NET Threading Mystery Classes

https://github.com/fbie/threading-mysteries
4•superF•1h ago•1 comments

Show HN: Use Just Your Voice To Author Flow Charts

https://www.loom.com/share/bf336caddabc4e8b84032aa95a7ff303?sid=5c24a0b3-8b28-4dbe-91ce-5077dce2ddaf
4•voice_prompt•1h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Asciilator.com

https://www.asciilator.com/
13•4m1rk•5h ago•7 comments

Show HN: Mosaique.info – Global news in context (solo dev, no ads, no tracking)

https://www.mosaique.info
5•msqinfo•3h ago•0 comments

Show HN: SQLxport – Export SQL Query Results to Parquet, CSV, and S3

https://github.com/vahid110/sqlxport
5•wahid110•2h ago•0 comments

Show HN: I'm Building Ahrefs for AI Search Results

https://linrush.com/
5•devarifhossain•2h ago•1 comments

Show HN: pgarrow – A SQLAlchemy PostgreSQL dialect for ADBC

https://github.com/michalc/pgarrow
3•michalc•2h ago•0 comments

Show HN: I made a scripting language run in the browser with no HTML

https://github.com/sinisterMage/WPlusPlusPlayground
4•sinisterMage•2h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ultra-lightweight chunker library with emoji support

https://github.com/ushakov-igor/chonkify
16•Beardier•4h ago•4 comments

Show HN: Psuedocode Expander

https://github.com/Explosion-Scratch/psuedocode-expander
3•explosion-s•3h ago•0 comments

Show HN: I build one absurd web project every month

https://absurd.website
263•absurdwebsite•1d ago•63 comments

Show HN: Slurm-web – open-source lightweight web UI for Slurm HPC/AI clusters

https://slurm-web.com/
6•rezib•6h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Kan.bn – An open-source alterative to Trello

https://github.com/kanbn/kan
471•henryball•1d ago•210 comments

Show HN: Rethinknig Serverless – Services, Observers, and Actors Now Available

3•genovalente•4h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Legal Eyes – Turn casual text into legalese with one click

https://www.legaleyes.uk/
4•ForgedLabsJames•5h ago•3 comments

Show HN: A toy version of Wireshark (student project)

https://github.com/lixiasky/vanta
253•lixiasky•1d ago•70 comments

Show HN: Cmd-K for the Terminal

https://github.com/mieubrisse/cmdk
5•mieubrisse•6h ago•1 comments

Show HN: Compliant LLM toolkit for ensuring compliance & security of AI systems

https://github.com/fiddlecube/compliant-llm
6•kaushik92•6h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Winhider – Hide windows from screenshare and Taskbar/Taskswitcher

https://github.com/aamitn/winhider
3•bigwiz•6h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Onlook – Open-source, visual-first Cursor for designers

https://github.com/onlook-dev/onlook
400•hoakiet98•5d ago•80 comments

Show HN: I built an open source clone of Grok's DeepSearch

https://github.com/mendableai/firesearch
2•ericciarla•6h ago•0 comments

Show HN: Penny-1.7B Irish Penny Journal style transfer

https://huggingface.co/dleemiller/Penny-1.7B
145•deepsquirrelnet•1d ago•72 comments

Show HN: Text to 3D simulation on a map (does history pretty well) with gmaps++

https://worldlens.co/map/
4•lukehollis•8h ago•0 comments

Show HN: I made an AI that turn live lecture into structured notes,mind-maps,PDF

https://www.notorium.app
26•pranav_harshan•1d ago•14 comments