Blink Shell 14: Legacy Reviews

You broke my favorite feature

Jerrythea

I have been using Termius for awhile, since they implemented my favorite feature from Blink. On the iPad smart keyboard, using the stupid caps lock key as control modified. I just tried Blink a few minutes ago, and here is what I see: The 'Tab' key prints some sort of special unicode character (copyright or at sign). The CapsLock key properly maps to 'Ctrl', but then any key-presses are not echoed. Although these keypresses aren't echoed, they are taken as keystrokes. If you press CapsLock again, it is back to normal. This effectively makes the CapsLock keyswap with Ctrl unusable. I do not even think the Tab key works out of the box. Just to verify this wasn't an iPadOS bug, I upgraded from iPadOS 13.1.3 to 13.2.2. Some improvements with the 'tab' key, but caps lock mapping still not quite right. I have diagnosed the issue. The mapping between Caps Lock and Control is functioning properly. However, the CapsLock key, whether mapped or not, is acting as a toggle key. So, if you press 'CapsLock-A' it properly goes to the beginning of the line (emacs mode). However, if you now press 'F' 'F' 'F' it goes forward one character at a time. The same is true for 'U' (clear line) and 'C' (INTR). If you then press the CapsLock key again, the 'Lock' is toggled off.

One of my favorite tools

seven 1

Consistent, simple, and highly usable. Blink is a top notch utility.

Doesn't save passwords for FreeBSD

BitingChaos

I added several hosts I work with, Linux, and FreeBSD (10.x, 11.x, and 12.x). For the Linux hosts, it logs right in. For the FreeBSD hosts, it prompts for a password, even when I've already entered one and saved it for the host.

Mosh + SSH is awesome, file transfer is wonky

loocorez

Love Blink for the mosh/SSH feature, works amazing for that and what I bought it for. The scp/sftp commands do not function as expected and appear to be curl wrappers, take odd arguments (like a mandatory local file for sftp) and do not appear to work. Additionally I’m unable to get iCloud file sharing to work (I can use link-files to pick a folder, but when I try to cd in and ls my terminal breaks). Would be awesome if this works as expected! If you just need mosh/ssh this is still the best bet!

external display support broke

ifuporg

I can not use this app for demos or presentations because the external display support is broken on iPadOS 13. Please fix, I am using a different app now because of this broken feature.

It just keeps getting better

Walt Stoneburner

Blink is now my absolute go to for Mosh and SSH. The continued quality improvements just keep making it better. This latest round improves all kinds of keyboard capabilities making it on par with desktop keyboards and even works around Apple’s removal of the near-mandatory ESC key. What I really like is that the author hasn’t gone overboard with unnecessary features nor unnecessary minimalism. The app strikes the right balance and has the feel that they use their own application for real work. The performance and reliability is great — exactly what’s needed from a terminal application. It’s also with that Blink has a number of diagnostic tools in it as well for helping to solve network issues. (e.g. when a host isn’t responding, or when T-Mobile LTE won’t allow ssh and you should activate a VPN).

Really the best ssh app for iOS

Alexey Zhokhov

Love it. Crazy convenient UI. Obviously the the best. It’s totally worth the money!

Not what I was hoping for...

Buddy Lingus

I was not a Mosh user before trying Blink, so I didn’t know what to expect. I suppose what I was hoping for was SSH but always-connected, like 30 seconds after switching OR 3 days. You can get that by using Screen or tmux (as you can with SSH) and there is some integration for connecting to a session when you log in, but it’s pretty basic. What you get out of the box is a blue banner across the top of the screen that displays a clock that starts ticking once you hit a key telling you how long its been since it saw the server. Auto reconnect? Nah... don’t want to go and reinvent typing ;-) Just a confusing escape sequence you can’t actually type on a native iOS keyboard. It’s Ctrl+^. Yeah, they actually used the most common abbreviation for the control key as their escape sequence (And the character you end a sentence with)! So it’s actually Ctrl+Shift+6+Period Worse there is enough lag when entering the sequence that you have time to try something else, so unless it’s the last sequence you try it won’t register. And since there is nothing you can do with one of these disconnected sessions other than recycling the terminal, why even bother? Just tell me connections X,Y and, Z got disconnected. So that leaves us with a lag free SSH replacement... I do mostly systems administration from my terminal, I type a small command and look at lots of output, and I refine... so the tricks Mosh uses to keep interaction fluid are lost on me. Perhaps if you are using an interactive editor remotely to program while riding in an elevator? Compiling C++ on the subway? Don’t use a version control system... I’m really not sure. Even aligning themes is a clumsy process involving pasting a github link.

First impressions? Whoaaa baby! This is fantastic!

shames0

Only been using it for 30 minutes, but so far I really love it. Never thought I’d have an app I loved this much on my iPad. That said, it has only been 30 minutes. I’ll update this review after I’ve used the app for a longer while.

Mosh and Tmux really are a big improvement

JKP in WA

I’m not a heavy user but using Mosh with Blink has been awesome. The predictive interface really reduces lag and makes using servers with my cruddy home network much more enjoyable. Definitely snappier than ssh. Thanks for all the work and I appreciate that it’s open source so I could build myself if I’d like.