iSH Shell Reviews

I’ve been around since the project started and have followed the beta til now. The work involved in the creation of iSHShell and the community standing behind it amazing and deserves credit for porting this over to iOS. Many man hours were put in by Theodore himself and others such as the creator UTM and other contributors that have given valuable insight to the community and have pushed the limitations of iSH in order to present a full features Alpine Linux experience right here on your iOS device which is no small feat. This application allows much freedom over file s creation, editing, and even movement of files and folders laterally to other application folders. It’s worth the download even if you just want to place games in the terminal or ssh into your devices. Enjoy!

Project Zer0

This is a great app, and it has great potential. I've done some research on the web, and apparently there was supposed to be in APK package manager for iSHShell under Alpine Linux. When I try to install APK packages, it says, "Ash, APK, not found". I was trying to compile Emacs from the source, but it requires the GNU make package which iSHShell doesn't come with preinstalled. Other than that though, this is a great step forward to having Linux in your pocket. Though it's limited and sandboxed, and can't necessarily run directly on iOS hardware, this is something awesome too see. One thing I particularly like is the voiceover accessibility support. I was able to connect an external keyboard and start working with Linux on my iOS device. The only thing that could be improved is that it's a little slow when you're typing commands, but this is still an awesome app. I am looking forward to future development.

I was finally able to use ipad for remote linux shell access and makes it one step closer fir mac book replacement. It feels little sluggish when adding public keys, but is working. Can not change time zone yet. However it is usable and with apk support makes it very useful. Hopefully other distros will add support as this adds portability. Using this in ipad pro 12.9 second generation.

Am I the first to rate? The AppStore automatically set a 3-star rating, so I decided to write a 3-star review. i686 support isn’t complete yet, app is still in beta testing even though it was just yesterday iSH listed at 69,99$. Download listed as 3.8Mb although actual (re)install has reduced that to ~2Mb.
Alpine’s various ‘i386’ repositories have hordes of independent and interdependently-functioning prebuilt binaries archived into individually-downloadable apk packages, but some of these are riddled with multithreading and complex 32-bit SSE2 instructions: while an unknown number are still on their way to being supported, iSH-emulated multithreading doesn’t (yet) function for at least one of the 2020 iDevice chipsets. Caveat emptor!

This is almost everything I want (barring theming) in a terminal app. If it would only work. I can maybe type one or two commands before iSHShell freezes and does not recognize any text input, and I have to close it and re-open it, rendering it almost completely unusable. It's not a one-time thing, either, it happens just about every time I open iSHShell . I recommended this to a friend and he installed it on his iPad Pro and it also happened to him, though more intermittently than me. I just wish this bug could be fixed, because everything else about iSHShell is almost perfect.

tl;dr: I was able to compile a LaTeX Beamer presentation with pictures etc. as is, by installing the full texlive distro via apk. To me this is the most important use case—-edit a presentation in a pinch with no computer nearby, and no net access.

My main fear is that Apple will eventually pull the plug. I do hope they relent and explicitly allow for this kind of fully sandboxed VMs, and hopefully even allow JIT compilation. But, who knows if they will?

Outstanding implementation of alpine. Super on all levels save one: the multi-directional arrow button.

TODO: Add an option for alternate button layout: ⬅️⬆️⬇️➡️ instead of the clunky multi-arrow button.

Why: because in actual phone use the multi-button provides no end of frustration because:
(1) it’s a super tiny controller for big fat fingers,
(2) it’s a button with an overloaded state—all 4 directions in one button!?
(3) when it transitions states is unpredictable to the user,
(4) you can’t see the thing transition to a new state under your fat fingers—making it even more unpredictable!

There’s plenty of room on the row for all 4 buttons. Please just make 4 directional buttons an option. Other than that I can’t think how to improve this mostly wonderful app.

I have this thing, which many of you will understand. It’s not a /real/ computer until I have command line. Sure, it’s sandboxed...but hey, I can run vi, python and compile helloworld.c on my iPad!

It really changed how I use my iPad and I spent time seeing how much of my day I could handle on it and I was surprised to find out that I could do most of it.

Do not underestimate what a command line means to some of us.

I was on the TestFlight program before with the apk package manager and it was a really useful app, bringing actual productivity to my iPad in the form of Alpine Linux, albeit the hardware and software limitations. Now it’s finally released on iSHShell Store without a package manager and I am really happy for the developer! Things can of course still be installed through the Files app, file systems can by imported, and more! And the initial price was pretty nice〜

I was amazed when I found iSHShell. It is wonderful to get an Alpine Linux based tool right on my iPad. Even with iPadOS limitations it is super useful, especially with the ability to import from the “filesystem”. The only thing I could ask for is the ability to change shells, though that may be baked in already.

I am a linux desktop user and I hate laptops.... this shell keeps me productive the 5 minutes a month where I remotely need to access a terminal on the mothership but also could use a local session to string some commands together. May the spaghetti monster bless you for making this, and thank you Apple for finally approving of such a project.

iSHShell is an absolute game-changer. There was nothing like it at the time of release, and that may still be true. The fact that Apple allows it shows that they might actually be committed to making iPads a computer replacement after all.

I have been using iSH on TestFlight for ever and have seen it mature. It’s so nice to be able to write ruby and python using vim :). Having a proper command line makes my iPad and iPhone so much more usable. Having said that iSH still has a long way to go and being officially added will definitely help it reach a wider audience and mature faster!

I was amazed: Looks like Linux, acts like Linux, tastes like Linux. After installing OpenSSH and git and emacs, this doubled the value of my iPad.

OK, so it’s not the fastest machine on earth, but once a week some fire erupts and the choice is going to the office or solving it with your iPad and suddenly the iPad has a much improved standing in my world.

Cons: no man, no distinct cursor keys for command line movement, no graphical user interface.

Suggest tap i button at top-right of screen keyboard and choose upgrade repository format. Wait until upgrade completes, then go to command line interface (CLI) and type. Observe tab key, control key, escape key at top-left of screen keyboard. Seemingly useless cursor mode key as a single four-arrows button (I don't know what other keys are for cursor - Vim hjkl).

apk
apk info
apk update
apk upgrade
apk list

Pro:
Lets you copy your personal files from iOS v12 such as your notes PDF into a Linux subdirectory and then ftp copy it to your personal computer.

I Been using iSHShell for developing with vim and even though it’s slow it still can do what I want and the terminal feels right at home. I just hope apple don’t decide to remove it and if it get popular maybe they can aim to increase its speed and optimize it the best they can.

This is the best way of running Alpine Linux on iOS without using emulation. The only thing I can think off right now that iSHShell is missing is VNC, which could be ported in iSHShell so you wouldn’t have to background, but right now iSHShell is perfect the way it is.

Hey everyone just wanted to say iSHShell is amazing I’ve been using it since like 2019 when it was on testflight, it has amazing capabilities and it’s nice to be able to have linux terminal on an iphone.

My question to the creators is does ish support docker yet??

A linux userland built from the ground up. Comes with an alpine rootfs, but you can swap that out. You can run normal x86 linux programs, and you can transfer files easily. You can even run an HTTP server! (for a few minutes, after which iOS kills iSHShell )

This is a fantastic project, but I do a lot with python, and pip is so slow that when I try to install some libraries like matplotlib, it just doesn’t’ finish. I’ve let it sit for an hour or more to no avail. I’m not sure why it would get stuck, the package is only 40MB. It downloads ok, but just won’t finish installing.

I have been using iSHShell through the beta process. It has allowed me to turn my iPad into a mobile Linux command line. I have compiled software pulled from GitHub, ssh into servers to fix files and play with different ideas with standard Linux tools.

Have been beta testing iSHShell for a very long time, it is amazing.

Provides close to everything you need in the terminal/shell domain.

The provided description is a slight understatement (for this mismatch I should take away one star, buahaha!!!1!)

iSHShell packs so much functionality it is amazing. It lets me do things I would have never thought have been possible on iOS.

Apple needs to be broken up. Apple store a separate company. iPhone too restrictive needs government oversight.

iSHShell bridges the mobile - pc divide more than any apple feature has

This is exactly what you get , run applications or just ssh , curl ...

Nice to see that this finally came to iSHShell store

Nice to use for everything i want to do, great work

I can’t believe that this is finally here!!

Been using the beta forever and I LOVE to see it on iSHShell Store.

I'm sorry to say that without apk it is not that useful ......

Thank you!

I have been blessed with iSHShell