Lectra can already show your Mac's screen on your iPad and let you control it. This week we built two things on top of that. Neither is on the App Store, and the outside connector is switched off. This post is about how they work and what stops them.
The first is an assistant inside a remote session. You type or say a task, such as opening a file and exporting it as a PDF, and the assistant looks at the screen, moves, clicks, and types until it is done or has a question for you. Dictation for it runs on the iPad, so what you say is not uploaded.
Every action it takes is sorted by how much it can change: looking, moving the pointer, changing something on screen, or committing something, like pressing Return or double-clicking. Anything that commits waits for you to approve it. There is an auto-approve switch, and it is off. The assistant stops on its own if the connection drops, if the Mac locks, or if Lectra's own session lock is on, which covers the session after five minutes idle and needs Face ID to lift.
The second is a connector that lets an outside assistant, such as Meta's Muse, use your Mac through Lectra. It is the most powerful thing Lectra can do, so it has the most fences:
- It can only be turned on at the Mac itself, with a confirmation there. Nobody holding your account can switch it on from somewhere else.
- You choose a ceiling: look only, control without Return, double-clicks, or shortcuts, or full control. New keys start at look only, and the Mac's ceiling overrides every key.
- Each key is shown once, is made on the Mac, and expires, after 30 days by default. Withdrawing a key works from the next request, and one button withdraws them all and turns the connector off.
- Nothing happens while the Mac is locked. It has no access to your files, your terminal, or your login password, and it cannot wake a sleeping Mac.
- Every action and every refusal is logged. Typed text is not; the log records only how long it was.
We also changed how a Mac decides to trust an iPad. Before, any iPad signed into the same account was trusted. Now each iPad holds its own key, signs a fresh challenge on every connection after a Face ID check, and has to be approved once at the Mac. You can revoke it later.
What we are not claiming: the Mac side of the connector, including its confirmation prompt and its refusal while locked, has been built but not yet tested on real hardware. And the hardest problem is not solved, only limited. A web page or email on your screen can contain text written to steer an assistant. The ceilings above decide how much damage that can do, which is why the default is look only. We will turn this on when the testing is done, and we will say so here.