mobium press
This tool on every surface: CLI · MCP · Python · JavaScript · Go · Java · .NET
Press a hardware button
On Android, back is primary navigation — an app that opened a detail screen expects it, and no amount of tapping substitutes for it.
iOS has no back button by design: navigation back is a per-app
affordance there, and press back is refused rather than sent as a
swipe. --gesture asks for the swipe by name, on either platform: in
from the left edge, in the navigation bar on iOS. On Android it is
refused where the device navigates with buttons, since an edge swipe
is not back there.
Back says what it did: whether it left the app, what is in front now, and on iOS what the navigation bar says.
The D-pad and select are how a TV is driven: a D-pad press says where focus went, or that it did not move, and select activates what has focus. The media keys go to whichever app holds the media session, and are reported as sent. iOS has none of them.
Any press can move the screen, so refs from the last map are discarded.
Usage
mobium press <back | home | recents | volume-up | volume-down | dpad-up | dpad-down | dpad-left | dpad-right | select | play-pause | stop | next | previous | rewind | fast-forward> [flags]
Flags
| Flag | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
--gesture | bool | back as a swipe in from the left edge, not the key |
And the global flags.
Examples
Press Back
mobium press back
Printed on an Android 15 emulator:
pressed back
| Before | After |
|---|---|
 |  |
mobium press back on an Android 15 emulator
Go to the home screen
mobium press home
Printed on an Android 15 emulator:
pressed home — com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher is in the foreground
mobium press home on an Android 15 emulator
Move focus with a TV remote's D-pad
mobium press dpad-down
Printed on an Android 15 emulator:
pressed dpad-down — focus moved to homepage_container
Go back with a swipe in from the edge
mobium press back --gesture
Printed on an Android 15 emulator:
swiped back from the left edge, halfway down — com.android.settings is still in the foreground; app_map shows which screen
More, from mobium press --help
mobium press back
mobium press back --gesture
mobium press home
mobium press recents
mobium press dpad-down
mobium press select
The tool
press calls app_press; its arguments and what every client calls it are there.