Author: Matthew Cassinelli

12 ways to get the most out of Shortcuts for iPhone

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date August 7

Yours truly for iMore:

The best automation is the one you have with you, and that means Shortcuts for iPhone is the biggest opportunity for people to take advantage of Apple’s automation platform.

When building Shortcuts for iPhone, users should try to think about automation opportunities that work well for a small screen, can be carried around with you, and take advantage of the device-specific features.

With that in mind, here are four areas (with 12 example shortcuts) that are good to focus on in your own adventure:

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags iMore, iPhone, Offsite, Shortcuts

Livestreams Offsite

Shortcuts Live with special guest Rosemary Orchard

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date August 5

Join me and special guest Rosemary Orchard on Friday, August 12th at 10am PST to talk everything Shortcuts, especially her recently-updated book Take Control of Shortcuts (2nd edition).

Rosemary is the cohost of Automators on Relay FM with David Sparks, iOS Today on TWiT with Mikah Sargent, and her independent show Nested Folders with Scotty Jackson — she has a depth of knowledge about automation, smart homes, productivity, development, and everything in-between.

Come say hi in the chat and ask us questions as we talk all about Shortcuts!

Get notified here when the stream goes live.

Tags Livestreams, Rosemary Orchard, Take Control Books

iMore Offsite

Five apps Apple could automate to win over pro users

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date August 4

Yours truly for iMore:

Apple’s Shortcuts app is the best way to automate processes across its devices and develop professional workflows to get things done.

With iOS 16, Apple is adding many more actions for its own apps and improving its Shortcuts support with deep new actions. However, these updates have been limited to more everyday apps like Safari, Mail, and Reminders — but Apple’s pro-level apps haven’t received similar updates.

This piece covers five first-party apps that “pros” use to get their work done and some starter actions that Apple should add for each of them:

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Actions, Apple, Apple Developer, Feedback Assistant, Final Cut, iMore, Logic, Shortcuts, TestFlight

iMore Offsite

Shortcuts gains powerful Find Tabs action for Safari, more in second public beta

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 30

Yours truly for iMore:

On Thursday, Apple released iOS 16 public beta 2, which includes a set of new actions for the Shortcuts app that work with Safari, Mail, and Reminders.

These actions include Find Tabs, Find Tab Groups, Find Bookmarks, Open Bookmarks, Find Reading Lists, Open Reading List Items, Search Mail, Open Mailbox, Open Smart List, Create Reminders List, and Search Reminders.

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Betas, Bookmarks, Create actions, iMore, iOS 16, iOS shortcuts, Mail, Read later, Reading List, Reminders, Safari, Search, Tabs

Links

Rosemary Orchard releases second edition of “Take Control of Shortcuts”

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 29

As part of Take Control Books, Rosemary Orchard has updated her book Take Control of Shortcuts to the second edition, now covering iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey now that Shortcuts has expanded to the Mac.

Here’s the description of the book from their website:

Automation is no longer just for advanced computer users! Apple’s Shortcuts app lets anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or Mac automate day-to-day tasks, from the simple to the complex. This book is a complete introduction to Shortcuts, covering every aspect of building, installing, debugging, running, syncing, and sharing shortcuts. It also includes step-by-step recipes for creating numerous useful shortcuts yourself.

Take Control also notes that the book will be updated for free during the iOS 16 cycle for anyone who purchases this edition, so that means you’re covered for everything new this upcoming year as well.

If you don’t already know Rosemary, you should familiarize yourself — she’s the host of Automators, iOS Today, and Nested Folders, plus she’s an all-around amazing person.

She’s taught me so much and anyone who uses Shortcuts should get her books & listen to her shows — congrats on the launch, Rose!

Get Take Control of Shortcuts for $14.99.

Tags Books, Learning resources, Rosemary Orchard, Shortcuts, Take Control Books

Shortcuts

Shortcuts shows too much personal information and that needs to change

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 29

I am writing this post because I am frustrated with the fact that Shortcuts shows personally identifiable information about me when live-streaming about the app, when Apple could easily change the interface to show the same information without exposing me and my girlfriend to personal safety problems.

To fix this Apple needs to overwrite personally-identifiable information in Shortcuts with generic placeholders that the user can understand from context, and they need to add the ability to remove Suggestions.

Every time you go into Shortcuts and try to pick a location, it will show your Home Address in the view — please just change this to say “Home” and do not input the address into the Location field, Home is plenty.

When you first open Shortcuts to a blank shortcut, in the bottom right there are often “Suggestions” based on your recent activity. However, there is no way to remove this information, meaning that recent contacts will always show up there and your friends & family have no choice but to have their names, images, and sometimes phone numbers appear on-screen. I’ve had Apple PR contacts of mine appear in this view when producing public content, for example.

Any suggested actions in the Shortcuts app should also be able to be removed — in my Reminders suggestions, the app is currently recommending that I make a shortcut with my most-recently added reminder, which includes information I do not want on-screen and cannot remove before trying to record my screen.

I originally sent this feedback to Apple on July 24, 2019 as FB6809181. It’s now been three years and I’m basically lucky this hasn’t been a bigger issue so far.

I really hope Apple takes this post to heart and adds these small but significant changes to the Shortcuts app in iOS 16.0 — I really don’t want this to become a much larger and much more personal issue by having my family’s privacy violated because I choose to share about this cool app I like to use.

Tags Feedback, Shortcuts

Livestreams Membership

Shortcuts Live: Working with Safari Tabs in iOS 16 Public Beta 2

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 28

Tune into the latest episode of Shortcuts Live, where I streamed for a little over an hour covering the new Find Tab action that I discovered in iOS 16 public beta 2.

Tune into the latest episode of Shortcuts Live, where I streamed for a little over an hour covering the new Find Tab action that I discovered in iOS 16 public beta 2.

Join me from just after the launch of iOS 16 public beta 2 to build Shortcuts live — this stream, we’ll cover the new Find Tabs and Reading List actions that I just discovered in the betas, plus the Reminders actions that just reappeared after disappearing after the first developer beta.

The Safari actions are pretty exciting, so come share your ideas in the chat and we’ll come up with some great use cases together!

Here’s a list of the chapters:

00:00 – Start of stream
05:45 – Markdown list of current tabs
12:52 – Filter Links That Don’t Contain Specific Website
15:17 – Find Bookmarks & Reading List filters
20:13 – Find Tab Groups
22:00 – Find Tabs from Specific Tab Group (doesn’t work, but we covered Focus Filters & Scripting)
35:37 – Add to Reading List, Instapaper, Pocket
38:15 – Set Playback Destination / Speaker Groups
39:45 – Stream Deck teaser
42:12 – Saving Links to Clipboard
45:58 – Auto-Lock
48:32 – Open Tab & Choose From List
49:53 – Search Tabs
53:25 – Quick Note
57:20 – Quick Note with Link
1:00:04 – Get Article Details From Tabs
1:03:21 – Mail app
1:04:45 – Reminders Smart Lists
1:07:11 – Reminders Templates
1:10:47 – Add Tabs As Rich Reminders
1:12:43 – End of building / Revue discussion
1:15:27 – Wrap-up / Logging shortcuts
1:24:00 – Actual Goodbye

If you’re watching the replay, you can still leave comments and I can respond to them afterwards!

This content is marked as members-only – you’ll need a membership to access it.

Tags livestream, Membership, Reading List, Reminders, Safari, Shortcuts Live, Tabs, YouTube

iMore Offsite

Apple isn’t doing enough for new Shortcuts users — here’s how they can fix it

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 27

Yours truly for iMore:

When it comes Apple’s Shortcuts app, many new users are caught off guard. They hear about the potential, but the app is very complicated. When presented with a blank slate, many often don’t go further figuring it out.

For such an important app in Apple‘s ecosystem, the company needs to do a lot more to onboard first time Shortcuts users and get them familiar with the app and how to build in it. Here are three areas the company could improve on and why those matter for newbies:

Sometimes you need to call it like it is — I’ve written about some of these before, but I want to see a lot more so new users can get further quicker.

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Apple, iMore, New users, Onboarding

iMore Offsite

Here are 7 ways to get started with Shortcuts for Apple Watch

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 23

Yours truly for iMore:

The Shortcuts app for Apple Watch is a small but powerful way to access the vast array of capabilities from the apps on your device, all from the convenience of a few taps on your wrist.

Some of the ways Shortcuts on Apple Watch can be most useful, however, are not immediately obvious — there’s a lot of potential in Shortcuts, but honing in on the best use cases and avoiding too much complexity is important for a good Watch-based experience.

This piece covers seven areas where you can build Shortcuts for Apple Watch that are worth exploring, have powerful actions to take advantage of, and work well when running from your favorite Apple Watch:

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Apple Watch, Shortcuts

Guest appearances Offsite Podcasts

iOS Today #611: Setting up Focus Modes on your iPhone

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 22

This Tuesday, I had the pleasure of being as a guest on iOS Today with Mikah Sargent:

Personalize your custom Focus modes in iOS 15 or iOS 16, from silencing specific notifications to switching screens based on location.

Home Screen customization

Lock Screen customization

Focus activation scheduling

Using particular colors for context

Watch the full episode on TWiT or on Apple Podcasts.

Tags Focus Modes, Shortcuts, TWiT

iMore Offsite

14 Shortcuts for Safari Views, Tab Groups, and Focus Filters to use with iOS 16

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 22
1 Comment on 14 Shortcuts for Safari Views, Tab Groups, and Focus Filters to use with iOS 16

Yours truly for iMore:

Safari has gained six actions of its own so far in the betas:

1. Open View
2. Open New Tab
3. Open New Private Tab
4. Create Tab Group
5. Open Tab Group
6. Set Safari Focus Filter

[…]

Currently only available for developers and public testers (but coming to everyone this fall), these actions are aimed at interacting with different “views” in Safari, plus creating tabs and doing basic Tab Group management.

To help you take full advantage of these, here are 14 shortcuts built out with each potential option across the actions so that you don’t have to build them yourself:

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Betas, Focus Filters, iMore, iOS 16, Safari, Tab Groups

iMore Offsite

iOS 16 public beta adds 46 new Shortcuts actions for Focus Filters, Background Removal, Parked Cars

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 15

Yours truly for iMore:

If you’re installing the public beta, developer beta, or just curious about the new features for Shortcuts coming to iOS 16, you’ll be glad to know that Apple added 46 new actions that add deeper access and advanced functionality to the Shortcuts ecosystem.

The main set of actions for Shortcuts focuses on Notes, Voice Memos, and Safari, plus Shortcuts itself. Additionally, Apple added new actions for Clock, Files, and Parked Cars, plus more for features like Focus Filters, Background Removal, and Personal Hotspot, and PDFs.

Here’s the full list of what’s new (so far) in the public betas:

As a follow to my post covering the full set of actions coming in iOS 16, I wrote about the current set in the public betas — actions for Books, Mail, and Reminders aren’t working, so I’ll be publishing a follow-up on iMore when they become available in future betas.

Also of note — almost none of these work on the Mac either (yet?).

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Actions, Betas, iMore, iOS 16, Public beta

iMore Offsite

8 ways to get help from Apple Support using Shortcuts

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 9

Yours truly for iMore:

Apple’s Support resources are incredibly helpful when you’re running into issues, need to repair a device, or for learning more about how to use your devices.

With an entire Knowledge Base online, the Apple Support app, and their social media pages, there’s a lot of ways to access help pages, get direct support, and browse more to learn on your own — so here’s a set of shortcuts to help you do just that.

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags Apple, Apple Support, iMore, Shortcuts

iMore Offsite

Apple is releasing tons of “hidden” features in Shortcuts — what about everyday users?

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 6

Yours truly for iMore:

As Apple continues to develop the Shortcuts app experience across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even Apple Watch, there are even more features and functionality that’s possible on Apple’s platforms, but only through the Shortcuts app.

As features like custom speaker groups become possible to create and break apart with Shortcuts, iOS often lacks a built-in, Apple-like way to activate the same functionality without using Shortcuts.

To put it another way, Apple is adding features to their OSes that otherwise don’t fit into the platform itself, but they can get away with adding by putting it into Shortcuts.

For example, there’s no elegant way to make combinations of speaker groups besides tapping around in Control Center, so instead Apple can ship it in Shortcuts, the power users are happy, and…everyday folks just…don’t get the feature?

I already got some comments on iMore in reply to my post, and I’d really love to know my readers’ thoughts on this too — please leave yours in the comments!

Read the full story on iMore.

Tags iMore, Linked, Opinion

Links

How Shortcuts changed one Redditor’s life

Post author By Matthew Cassinelli
Post date July 5

Today while working on this week’s upcoming newsletter, I came across a tweet sharing this story from r/shortcuts from last month where u/AngriBuddhist shared how “Shortcuts has literally changed my life”:

Prior to being a Workflow/Shortcuts user, the closest thing to automation/scripting that I’d done is make some pretty in-depth spreadsheets. For the last 5 years, though, I’ve been using Shortcuts to create daily reports for work. Manually, these would take more than 24 hours a day. I do them in 10-20 minutes. I’ve created other weekly reports that would also take more than 24 hours to create manually. With Shortcuts, it takes about 5 minutes.

No one has tried to create these types of things in my company because of the complexity and time investment. Without Shortcuts, I wouldn’t have imagined these projects in the first place.

These reports have had a huge impact on manager productivity, financial results and my visibility within the company.

Today, because of those results and visibility, I was offered and accepted a new role in the company, moving from 4 days a week of manual labor to 3 days of admin work from home, making the same salary[…].

I love seeing posts like this and I’m super glad this Shortcuts had such a big impact on this Redditor — what a great testimonial for the real-world impact that automation can have on one’s life.

See the post on r/shortcuts.

Tags Linked, Productivity, Reddit, Shortcuts