Introducing Echo
10th February 2026
We're thrilled to introduce Echo — a fast, modern SSH client for iOS and iPadOS, built for the new era of rich terminal-based tools and AI coding agents.
Echo is our first brand new app in a while, and it's our first app for iOS and iPadOS. It's a little different from what we've done before, and we'd love to tell you why we built it and what makes it special.
Why build a terminal app?
Something exciting has been happening in the terminal over the last couple of years. There's been an explosion in the TUI space — beautifully crafted, highly complex text-based user interfaces that are pushing the boundaries of what a terminal can do. Tools like lazygit and lazydocker, powered by libraries like Bubbletea, Ink and Textual, have shown that the terminal isn't just for text anymore — it's become a rich, interactive canvas.
At the same time, AI coding agents have completely changed how developers work. Tools like Claude Code, Codex and Amp are running in terminals on remote machines, generating code, running builds, and waiting for human input. Developers increasingly need to check in on these agents from wherever they are — approve a change on the train, monitor a build from the couch, or nudge an agent in the right direction while away from their desk.
And then there's Ghostty. Ghostty is our favourite terminal emulator. It's a terminal built with our own values of performance and true-to-platform native behaviour, as well as being beautiful, fast and flexible. Ghostty's terminal engine is open source and written in a way that can be embedded, which meant we could bring that same level of performance and correctness to iOS.
Over the last twelve months, we've been using all of these tools heavily. How we program has changed dramatically — we spend more time in the terminal than ever, working alongside agents, reviewing their output, and managing remote machines. At some point we realised that the app we kept reaching for on our phones didn't exist yet. So we built it. Echo is that app.
Built for iOS, not ported to it
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