Blink Shell

Blink Shell is a terminal for iPhone and iPad built around Mosh and SSH, written in Swift and Objective-C and licensed under GPL-3.0. Terminal rendering uses hterm, Chromium's JavaScript terminal. Mosh keeps sessions alive across network changes and sleep, so a connection survives switching apps or moving between networks. It is for developers and administrators who work on remote servers from an iPad or iPhone, often with a hardware keyboard.

Configuration is done in the app, opened with the config command or Cmd+comma. There you add hosts, create or import SSH keys and copy them to a server with ssh-copy-id, and choose themes and fonts, including custom ones. External keyboards get extensive support: Caps Lock can be remapped to Esc or Ctrl, modifiers and shortcuts are configurable, and Cmd shortcuts control the app. On the touch keyboard, a SmartKeys bar provides Ctrl, Alt, Esc and function keys, with Ctrl and Alt able to stay pressed.

Blink starts in a local shell with commands from the ios_system framework, including ls, cp, mv, grep, curl, scp, sftp and tar. It supports redirection but not pipes, and small scripts can be written in Python or Lua. A two-finger tap opens a new shell, swiping moves between open sessions, pinching changes the font size, and a three-finger tap opens the menu. iPadOS Split View lets Blink run beside another app.

There are no split panes inside the app, no GPU renderer and no inline image support documented. The App Store version is commercial, with a Blink+ subscription and a free trial, while the GPL-3.0 source can be built and installed on your own device with Xcode using the project's prebuilt frameworks (libssh2, OpenSSL, libmoshios, protobuf and ios_system).