Aleksey Smolenchuk

AI Engineering ✦ Current: @pocketmodelai ✦ Prev: OpenAI, Netflix, Uber

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

Phone Use is now completely untethered via an optional Bluetooth bridge

You can now have your agent control your phone from your phone.

An AI agent can now:

Use any mobile-only service, app, game or website
Approve 2FA
Order from DoorDash
Trade meme stocks on Robinhood
Swipe right on Tinder
Make poor decisions on Kalshi
Raise its blood pressure on X
Doomscroll on Reddit

No bot restrictions will stop it

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

Computer use is over.

Introducing PHONE USE!

https://t.co/493WqqdNYA

My real actual iPhone on my desk via Bluetooth and AirPlay connected to my Linux machine.

Textualization OCR happens out of band so we don't use screenshots all the time. There are recipes for all interactions. Agent skill for your robots.

You literally can just do anything now.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@ivanburazin +1

Optimizing utilization through optimal placement based on the specific behavior of the workload is key

But also, I feel like more juice can be squeezed out of the software that we run to deal with virtualization, scheduling, etc.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

we’re back baby

https://t.co/CBSSmE2dZM

your sandboxes and data are restored

to the up to hundreds of thousands of customers who survived this outage: thank you for your support. you all get a boon

now go out there and orble orble orble

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@esoubihe @latitudesh It happens. #hugops

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a cloud provider that would not nuke servers that you pay for, along with your customers' data, without warning.

I know it's a really high bar, unattainable by @latitudesh at least. Looking for other options.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@oombyte @latitudesh I’m un-nuking it and building a backup multi cloud deployment

Never thought I’d have to do this at this stage

[Guillermo Rauch @rauchg]

PSA: creating wonderful products still requires extraordinary amounts of human focus, effort, motivation, and love. And an attention span.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@burcs @latitudesh wasm browser sandbox should be good enough

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

it's still a thing because it's way easier to set up now that it is more or less a standard implemented across the board.

pretty much any agent can do MCP auth and has abstractions such as "connections" and "apps"

Installing a CLI inside a sandbox and then having agent to read markdown files and then maintain it somehow is more brittle.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@realmrfakename @latitudesh yep stock and location and features is the optimization problem here.

thanks for this!

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

uh @latitudesh may I kindly ask why the entire server I paid for is gone without warning?

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

if I could quote and repost a tweet 100,000 times, this would be it

[ThePrimeagen @ThePrimeagen]

Monorepos were always an anti-pattern

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@sahilypatel I read this in the *adjusts glasses* "achtchyually..." voice

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@xrpant i respect this well-executed engagement bait

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@iamhenryyuan This is very well executed

[Henry @iamhenryyuan]

My AI agent just finished a full Duolingo lesson on a real iPhone. And it didn't burn the most expensive model on every step.

That's Handsy (ESP32 Agent): a small ESP32 board that gives an agent a real iPhone. 700+ people have installed it via TestFlight, and the repo just passed 4,800 stars.

What's in TestFlight 1.0.3 (1.0.4 released):

1. Cheap steps stay cheap. On the free route, Jev scores its confidence on every step. Confident steps run directly; only uncertain ones go to Qwen 3.8 Flash.

2. No coordinate guessing. The phone builds a virtual UI tree with classic computer vision + OCR (no LLM) in under 68 ms, so the model picks elements instead of guessing pixels.

3. The agent can hear. The board listens to the phone's audio and passes it to the agent, so it can do Duolingo listening exercises too. Off by default, needs firmware 0.2.4. Also works in the CLI and DeepSeek Harness.

4. Steadier video streaming and taps.

No developer account, no Mac, friendly for non-developer users.

Join TestFlight: https://t.co/LuOjp1BRFd
Setup guide: https://t.co/nIbWkVwU7r
Open source: https://t.co/77Sfn05XBJ

Sometimes the free AI providers crash due to many reason, still working on it. And thanks for all who are supporting this project on github.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@realmrfakename @latitudesh only highest end

[Henry @iamhenryyuan]

@lxe Thanks for putting esp32-iphone-agent on the list. Still no Mac needed: a $7 ESP32 board is the USB mouse and keyboard. App Store review just passed, and 830+ people are already on TestFlight: https://t.co/56SzzTsPqa

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@iamhenryyuan Congrats! This is pretty awesome.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

Since phoneuse blew up, people mentioned a lot of other similar tools for agentic phone use. Here's the short list:

https://t.co/493WqqdNYA - mine. Linux PC, AirPlay for the screen, Bluetooth HID for input. Phone: no app, no dev mode, just AssistiveTouch and a Bluetooth pairing

https://t.co/YrddOyp0GT - YC. Drives your iPhone through iPhone Mirroring on a Mac, plus rented cloud phones. Phone: nothing installed, iOS 18+

https://t.co/FwwBZl1tqo - a rack of real phones in SF with a robot stylus and an overhead camera, $149/mo per iPhone. Phone: theirs

https://t.co/BhBeiulJGB - runs fleets of physical iPhones on a schedule. Phone: theirs

https://t.co/KOPzcVXZ26 - PhoneAgent, runs on the iPhone itself. Phone: Developer Mode and a signed app

https://t.co/3SUm1RGqRO - same idea as mine (AirPlay + Bluetooth mouse), Linux or Windows. Phone: no app, just AssistiveTouch

https://t.co/IPb2rmVVIG - ESP32 plugged in as a USB mouse and keyboard, AirPlay for the screen. Phone: their app (TestFlight) and AssistiveTouch

https://t.co/woxbZqqSDD - ESP32 Bluetooth mouse and keyboard plus an iOS app that reads the screen. Phone: Developer Mode, the app built in Xcode, AssistiveTouch

https://t.co/Que2gDQ2zn - Mac with Xcode's developer services, with an MCP server. Phone: Developer Mode, iOS 27, paired to the Mac by cable once

https://t.co/f3YZ349xio - Mac, WebDriverAgent + iPhone Mirroring. Phone: Developer Mode, WebDriverAgent re-signed every 7 days on a free Apple ID

Android has adb, so it's a lot easier there.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

Computer use is over.

Introducing PHONE USE!

https://t.co/493WqqdNYA

My real actual iPhone on my desk via Bluetooth and AirPlay connected to my Linux machine.

Textualization OCR happens out of band so we don't use screenshots all the time. There are recipes for all interactions. Agent skill for your robots.

You literally can just do anything now.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

the sillytavern sub is losing their mind

[OpenRouter @OpenRouter]

OpenRouter is officially part of @stripe today!

More than 10 million developers and companies use OpenRouter, and as they build with more models across more workloads, they need control over what it costs and where their data goes.

OpenRouter has built that operating infrastructure to help run AI across every model and provider, with access to new models, uptime through outages, and enforced spend and data policies for each team.

Joining Stripe, which has spent years running critical infrastructure for businesses around the world, means we can build it faster and support companies at every scale.

Our commitment to neutrality stays the same. Models and providers compete on quality, reliability, and price. You decide what works for your business.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@burcs @latitudesh do you guys do large baremetal boxes with ipv6 /64

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@ihate_chris that future is already here

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

It’s in the App Store!

https://t.co/bbeo2Am7H6

Free app for Mac and Linux.
Lightning fast mouse and keyboard control.
Advanced permissions - agent asks you before it touches your phone.
No jailbreak, no custom dev stuff, no cable needed.

[Aleksey Smolenchuk @lxe]

@realmrfakename @latitudesh cheaper was my motivation but also need kvm / metal