Desktop Feature Request: In-window preview pane for native macOS apps
Problem
Claude Desktop 1.24012.0 added an iOS Simulator pane. Claude builds an iOS app, the simulator opens inline next to the conversation, and you can watch it or tap through it yourself. Nothing like that exists for a native macOS app -- it opens as its own window, outside Claude Desktop.
That's the surface problem. The real cost is everything wrapped around it:
- Every session, you re-approve Claude to control each desktop app from scratch. There's no way to persist that.
- If another window or a security prompt is in front when Claude tries to interact with the app, the approval flow breaks. You're now debugging a stuck permission dialog instead of testing your app.
- Sessions auto-archive after some unspecified idle period (tracked separately: #68972, #59449, #60043, #67811). When that happens, whatever you approved -- computer use included -- is gone. You start over.
None of these are about the macOS pane specifically. But an inline pane is exactly what removes the need for computer use in the first place -- the iOS Simulator pane already proves this: it drives the simulator directly and skips the permission dialog entirely, same as it skips Accessibility and Screen Recording. A macOS pane built the same way sidesteps all three problems above, not just the window-switching one.
What I'm asking for
An in-window preview pane for macOS apps, same behavior as the iOS pane:
- Claude launches the app, it renders inline next to the conversation instead of spawning a separate OS window
- Claude drives it directly, no computer-use approval required, same as the iOS pane
- I can click into it myself while Claude keeps working
- Local sessions only is fine -- same constraint the iOS pane already has
One correction on my own request: macOS doesn't have a "simulator." iOS needs one because it's a different OS/architecture than the Mac running it. A macOS app already runs natively -- nothing to simulate. What I want is an embedded live window. If the iOS Simulator pane generalizes into something like "Device & App Preview," this falls out of it naturally.
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