Parallax beta.9: your agent can now tap on a real iPhone
The agent on an iPhone 13 in the Parallax window: a tap, the perf lab opened and closed, and "Привет мир" typed into a field. 2× speed. Parallax is a desktop app and an MCP server that give you and your coding agent the same live view of a running React Native app: the screen, the component tree, logs, network and state. In beta.8 a real iPhone joined the window, watch only: you saw its screen…
Parallax beta.9 allows your agent to control a real iPhone within the Parallax desktop app. After setup, the agent can tap, swipe, and type on the iPhone using commands like device_tap, device_swipe, and device_type. The window's clicks, drags, and typing are also supported. The screen reflects the iPhone's accessibility tree, which includes system dialogs not visible in simulators.
Two safeguards prevent the agent from acting without confirmation: it refuses actions if the phone is locked or the app isn't in focus, and warns if a tap doesn't produce visible changes. On iOS 26 and earlier, the agent uses WebDriverAgent, an open-source runner downloaded, built, and run on the phone, with the process taking around 7 ms over USB or Wi-Fi.
Setup involves turning on Developer Mode and UI Automation on the iPhone, selecting an Apple developer team, building the agent helper, and registering the device in your Apple account. The first setup takes about 30 seconds, after which subsequent setups are faster. The agent works best on an iPhone 13 with iOS 26.7, with taps taking about 1 second and swipes around 3.3 seconds.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
