Astropad Workbench Lets You Remotely Control Your Mac and AI Agents From iPhone and iPad - MacRumors
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Astropad Workbench Lets You Remotely Control Your Mac and AI Agents From iPhone and iPad

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Astropad, the company behind the popular Astropad Studio software for turning the iPad into a drawing tablet, today launched a new app called Astropad Workbench. Astropad Workbench is a remote desktop app designed for the Mac, and more specifically, built for use with AI.

astropad workbench
With Astropad Workbench, you can control your AI agents remotely, which makes it useful for people who have set up a Mac mini as a personal server for use with OpenClaw and other AI agent features.

Astropad says that it created Workbench to help users monitor their AI agents from anywhere, without being tied to a desk. There are native apps for Mac, ‌iPad‌, and iPhone, so the iPhone and ‌iPad‌ are able to interface with the Mac desktop wherever you are.

It's simple to check logs and output to verify agent work, restart failed tasks, or reconnect to long-running jobs. There are also tools for switching between multiple Macs connected to a Workbench account.

Workbench offers high-fidelity streaming with a unified virtual display, low latency, speech-to-text input, and multiple control options from gestures to keyboard, mouse, and Apple Pencil. Setup is quick and easy without the need for network configurations, and AES-256 encryption is included. No display recordings are captured and saved.

New users are able to connect to Workbench for free for 20 minutes of daily access. Unlimited paid plans are priced at $10 per month or $50 per year. More information on Workbench can be found on Astropad's website.

Tag: Astropad

Top Rated Comments

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Simon89
16 hours ago at 10:23 am
Whilst I won’t say this app looks great, the subscription model of never owning stuff is starting to become annoying.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
atonaldenim Avatar
atonaldenim
16 hours ago at 10:45 am
Wow, even a remote desktop tool has to be promoted as “for AI” now.

I recommend Jump Desktop as a great remote desktop app that’s a one time purchase. But if 20 mins / day fits your use case, then this looks like a good free option. I don’t know if Jump Desktop supports the voice dictation feature this one has.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Happy_John Avatar
Happy_John
16 hours ago at 10:36 am
It's a handly bit of functionality, but there's a lot of similar solutions available. And given that this is a means of connecting one of my machines to another one of my machines, I won't pay a subscription for it (I will only buy such a solution outright) and I won't sign up to any service that's running through the developer's own server.

The developers own alternative product, Luna Display, would be something I would choose over this. For remote access, I'd rely on something I had far more direct control over.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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rishey
15 hours ago at 11:18 am
Jump desktop does this very well and for a one time fee no subscription.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Happy_John Avatar
Happy_John
15 hours ago at 10:52 am

Everybody complaining about the subscription model is failing to understand that there are ongoing infrastructure requirements to provide the service they are selling. This isn't a local connection, they are enabling a zero-friction tunnel no matter where your devices are.

I get the frustration, especially for all the software that only lives and runs on your local machine and has no ongoing infrastructure requirements for your usage. But this is not that, and if you're someone who is going to say they only need to be able to use this locally or through their own infrastructure, then this product is not geared toward you, move along.
Not necessarily. Many people would far prefer to build their own KVM / VPN solution.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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svanstrom
16 hours ago at 10:35 am

Or you could just have Claude do this in an entirely integrated way. I have Claude on my Mac mini running automated tasks all day and use dispatch from my phone or other devices to do things remotely.
I think people getting into these comments curious about Workbench would appreciate if you shared a bit about how you've done that, and how you based on your practical experiences view the features of Workbench.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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