PonPonKo for Mac
Signed by Samarkand Industries and notarized by Apple. Installs like any Mac app: open, drag, done.
macOS 14 or later · any Mac, with or without Touch ID
Install it
- Open the downloaded PonPonKo disk image from your Downloads folder.
- Drag PonPonKo onto Applications, then eject the disk image.
- Open PonPonKo from Applications. It lives in the menu bar and around your notch, not in the Dock: look for the sleeping tanuki eyes.
- Click the menu bar icon and grant each permission PonPonKo lists. macOS asks you to confirm each one in System Settings.
- Get the iPhone app and sign in with the same Apple ID as your Mac. That's the whole pairing: photos travel through your own iCloud.
- Click Arm (you disarm later with Touch ID or your Mac password), or press ⌃⌥⌘A. Then touch the trackpad and watch your phone.
Why each permission
- Camera. To photograph whoever is at your Mac during an incident. The green camera light comes on every time; it's hardware.
- Accessibility and Input Monitoring. To notice a key or the trackpad, and to lock them while armed. This is why PonPonKo isn't on the Mac App Store.
- iCloud. To send photos to your own private iCloud and on to your iPhone. We never see them.
- Location (optional). Adds a rough location, about 1 km, to an incident.
The iPhone companion
Free. It shows the photo, the time, battery and rough location the moment an incident starts, and lets you disarm with Face ID if it was you.
Check the download
Every release is notarized by Apple: macOS checks it before the first launch. If you'd like to check it yourself, run this in Terminal and compare:
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/PonPonKo.dmgUpdates
PonPonKo doesn't update itself yet. New versions appear here; download and drag to Applications again to replace the old one. Your settings, emergency code and history stay.