Orca IDE for iPhone: what the mobile companion does

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Orca IDE is the iPhone companion for Orca, Stably AI’s Winter 2022 YC agent development environment. The desktop product is positioned as a workspace for engineers who run multiple coding agents in parallel, with worktrees, terminals, diffs, a browser, and a CLI in one app. The mobile app is meant to let you keep an eye on those sessions when you are away from your desk. (ycombinator.com; onorca.dev)

On iPhone, Orca Mobile is designed as a thin client rather than a full coding environment. According to the App Store listing, it mirrors a desktop terminal live, including AI agent sessions such as Claude Code, Codex, and custom CLIs, and lets you type, tab-complete, use Ctrl-C, and switch between multiple worktrees and terminals. The listing also says it can background long-running commands and notify you when a TUI goes idle. (apps.apple.com; onorca.dev)

The app is most useful for engineers who already use Orca on a desktop or remote machine and want mobile access to monitor agent work, review status, and keep sessions moving. Orca’s site says you can pair the mobile companion to watch live agent status, check usage, switch accounts, and keep terminal work moving while you are away. The site also frames Orca as supporting a fleet of agents, with parallel worktrees intended to keep tasks isolated. (onorca.dev; apps.apple.com)

Setup requirements are straightforward but specific. The App Store listing says Orca Mobile requires an iPhone on iOS 16 or later and that your desktop must already have the Orca desktop app installed. It also says the phone and desktop should be on the same Wi‑Fi network, and that pairing uses an encrypted local-network connection with a QR code and one-time keypair. The desktop app itself is available from Orca’s website or GitHub releases. (apps.apple.com; onorca.dev)

Practical limitations matter. The mobile app does not run code locally on the phone; it only forwards input and displays what is happening on the desktop. The App Store listing says the iOS app does not include analytics SDKs or a crash reporter, while the desktop app may collect anonymized usage metrics under the desktop privacy policy. Recent X posts from Jason Zhou, Machina, and erik.eth describe Orca as useful for mobile access, remote worktrees, and running many agents, which matches the product’s stated focus, but those posts are user commentary rather than product specifications. (apps.apple.com; x.com)