{"slug": "show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents", "title": "Show HN: PhoneUse – Phones for AI Agents", "summary": "PhoneUse launched a tool that gives AI agents control of real retail iPhones and Android devices, exposing 12 tools including phone.acquire, screen.read, tap, type, swipe, app.open and sms.read through an MCP server or API that plugs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Windsurf. PhoneUse says the racked devices in its San Francisco facility run real apps with real SIMs and are tapped by a physical stylus so they pass device integrity checks that emulators fail, and it prices access from $20/mo, $0.024/min for bursty tasks, and $149/mo for apps that block emulators. The company cites an agent run that acquired an iPhone 15 Pro, read 38 comments on an Instagram Reel, replied to every one and finished in 2.8 seconds.", "body_md": "12 tools\n\n- phone.acquire\n- screen.read\n- tap\n- type\n- swipe\n- app.open\n- sms.read\n- +5 more\n\n“Get a real iPhone, open Instagram and post today’s menu to our story.”\n\nPlug Claude Code Codex or Cursor into a phone and automate any app, through MCP or our API.\n\nHover an app to see what your agent can do with it.**With PhoneUse, your agent can:** \n\nMessagesnow\n\nYour Uber code is 4821\n\nShare this PIN with your driver to start the trip.\n\nUbernow\n\nDriver arriving shortly\n\nGrey Toyota Camry · 8KXL 204 is 1 min away.\n\nZomatonow\n\nYour food is being prepared\n\nArriving in 28 min · 2 items from Kebab House.\n\nLet’s see how simple it can be.\n\nclaude\n\nPost today’s menu photo to our Instagram story and tag the chef.\n\nApps can tell when they run on a virtual device. A retail phone with a real SIM, touched by a physical stylus, looks exactly like a person. To the app, it is one.\n\n8 / 8 checked · signed off by rack ops\n\nLIVE · SF rack · iPhone 15 Pro #07\n\nApp-side scan0/7\n\n01**Phone**\n\nA retail iPhone 15 Pro running real apps. No jailbreak, no helper app.\n\nAgents stall the moment a task needs a native app, a real text message or a phone the app trusts. Here is where each route gives out.\n\n| How PhoneUse compares with browser agents and emulators |  |  |  | \n|---|---|---|---|\n| What the task needs | Browser agents | Emulators | PhoneUse | \n|---|---|---|---|\n| Use native mobile appsBrowser agents can’t leave the web. | No | Yes | Yes | \n| Receive real SMS and 2FATexts need a SIM. Only phones have one. | No | No | Yes | \n| Pass device integrity checksEmulators fail Play Integrity and App Attest. | No | No | Yes | \n| No hardware on your deskReal phones, racked in our cloud. Nothing to plug in. | Yes | Yes | Yes | \n| Hundreds of devices in parallelEmulators eat RAM. A laptop runs a handful. | Yes | Partly | Yes | \n| Works from any MCP clientEmulator MCP servers exist, but setup is DIY. | Yes | Partly | Yes | \n\nHover or focus a row to see why\n\nDrop the MCP server into Claude, Cursor, Codex or Windsurf. Or use the API or the CLI. No SDK required, no device setup.\n\nAn agent run: it acquires a real iPhone 15 Pro, reads 38 comments on an Instagram Reel, replies to every one, and finishes in 2.8 seconds.\n\nExample chat. You: Get a real iPhone and tell me when the driver is here. Agent: Watching the ride app on iPhone #07. Agent: Your driver is here: grey Toyota Camry, plate 8KXL 204. I texted the guest. You: Perfect. Book the same ride for Friday 7pm.\n\nWorks from any MCP client\n\nTeams use PhoneUse wherever the browser runs out.\n\nPost, reply and grow on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit, where browser bots get caught.\n\nExample prompt: “Reply to every comment on today’s Reel”\n\nAgents that text first, with the full context of a real phone behind them.\n\nExample prompt: “Text Sam when his order ships”\n\nA real number receives verification codes, so flows never stall at login.\n\nExample prompt: “Log in and read the code from SMS”\n\nOrder on Swiggy, Zomato or Uber, apps with no web version an agent could reach.\n\nExample prompt: “Reorder my usual from Zomato”\n\nRun suites across hundreds of Android and dozens of iOS devices in parallel.\n\nExample prompt: “Run checkout on 40 devices”\n\nGive agents a safe mobile environment to learn and evaluate in before production.\n\nExample prompt: “Spin up 10 clean Pixels for evals”\n\nReal tasks on real phones, recorded as they ran.\n\nStart in the cloud. When an app pushes back, switch to a real device by changing one parameter.\n\nSame API on every plan. Switch with one parameter:\n`device=\"cloud\"`\n`device=\"real\"`\n\nfrom$20/mo\n\nQA, scraping and testing\n\n$0.024/min\n\nBursty tasks and quick experiments\n\n$149/mo\n\nApps that block emulators\n\nCustom\n\nCloud phones or real iPhones\n\n`phone = pu.acquire(device=)`\nSame code. Same tools. Different phone.\n**Cloud phones** are virtual Android devices that boot in seconds and scale to hundreds. **Real phones** are retail iPhones and Androids in our San Francisco rack, tapped by a robot stylus, for apps that detect emulators.\n\nYes. No jailbreak, no root and no helper app. It's a retail iPhone with a real carrier SIM. A stylus touches the glass and an overhead camera reads the screen, so the phone runs exactly as it shipped.\n\nAny MCP client, including Claude, Cursor, Codex and Windsurf. You can also use the API or the CLI.\n\nYes. Every phone uses the same API, the same MCP tools and the same CLI, so you only point your agent at a different phone. Most teams build on cloud phones and move the flows that get blocked onto real ones.\n\nOn real phones, yes. Each one has a real carrier number, so verification codes arrive the way they would for a person, and your agent reads them in Messages.\n\nOn-demand cloud phones cost **$0.024** for each minute a phone is running. You pay for the exact time used, so part of a minute costs part of the rate. Dedicated cloud phones and real phones are a flat monthly price.\n\nHave a workflow in mind? Let’s find the right phones for it.\n\n Choose a time for a 20-minute walkthrough of PhoneUse.\n\nPrefer a separate tab? [Open the booking page](https://app.iclosed.io/e/phoneuse/phoneuse) \n\nAgents are no longer limited to the browser. Give yours a phone in the next five minutes.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents", "canonical_source": "https://www.phoneuse.com/", "published_at": "2026-11-03 02:50:40+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-03 03:21:06.792857+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "agent-protocols", "ai-products"], "entities": ["PhoneUse", "Claude Code", "Codex", "Cursor", "Windsurf", "Instagram", "Uber", "Zomato"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-phoneuse-phones-for-ai-agents.jsonld"}}