Phone Harness lets AI agents drive a real iPhone or a rented one in the cloud

Shawn Pana, solo founder and CEO of Y Combinator Fall 2026 company Phone Harness, launched Phone Harness on November 4th, letting AI agents operate a personal iPhone or Android or a hosted cloud phone to test mobile apps, send messages, make calls and retrieve two-factor authentication codes. Pana, previously on growth at Browser Use, open-sourced the harness for personal devices while selling persistent cloud phones as a rental business, targeting the gap where logged-in sessions, real phone numbers and SMS 2FA block automation of native mobile apps.

Phone Harness lets AI agents drive a real iPhone or a rented one in the cloud Solo founder Shawn Pana, previously on growth at Browser Use, is selling agents persistent cloud phones after open-sourcing the harness for personal devices. By Ryan Merket https://runtimewire.com/author/ryan-merket · Published · Updated Primary source: x.com https://x.com/shawn pana/status/2118010388621000770 Why it matters Phone Harness attacks the gap between browser agents and native mobile apps, where logged-in sessions, real phone numbers and SMS 2FA still block automation. Persistent cloud iPhones and Androids give Pana a rental business and put spending, messaging and identity actions inside an agent's reach. Shawn Pana @shawn pana https://x.com/shawn pana launched Phone Harness on November 4th in a thread on X https://x.com/shawn pana/status/2118010388621000770 . He pitched it as a way for AI agents to use a personal iPhone or Android, or a hosted phone in the cloud, to test mobile apps, send messages, make calls and retrieve two-factor authentication codes. Pana is the solo founder and CEO of Phone Harness, which he lists as a Y Combinator Fall 2026 company.… When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission https://runtimewire.com/affiliate-monetization-standards . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.