New shortcut: I’m washing my hands:
Sets a timer for 20 seconds so that you can wash your hands thoroughly without thinking about how long it takes.
Use this to help internalize how long it takes to wash your hands, especially amongst the Coronavirus concerns.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
Matt Haughey, writing for his site A Whole Lotta Nothing:
As you might have guessed from a previous post, I’m not a fan of carrying keys and or even having to use them. When I moved to a new place, I knew I’d use the front door as my main point of entry (instead of a garage attached to a house), so I wanted to get it as automated as possible, where the front door unlocks as I approach it, and locks when I leave.
Matt started with an August Smart Lock and ended up getting NFC tags so that everyone in his family could tap in and out of the house. Be sure to check out the full article for all his photos of the setup too.
This bit is excellent – I’m definitely thinking about NFC “skins” instead of having white dots all over the place:
To make them blend in a bit more, I went to my local Lowe’s and bought a $5 roll of adhesive-backed shelf paper in a maple pattern that mostly matched my wood posts. I used a NFC tag as a template, traced it onto the paper, and cut out two holes, then pulled off the backing and stuck them over the tags. From a distance, you can barely tell they’re there since I put the NFC stickers over wood knots and they look like wood repair patches now.
I’ve joked before that Matt is my smart home spirit animal – he continues to fill that role well ?.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
Last Monday night, I streamed on Twitch for about a half hour on the topic of Ferrite for iPad with my friend Alec Pulianas, a computer engineer and podcast editor at AMP Creative Studios.
We both edit podcasts and audio using Ferrite, a purpose-built audio editing app designed primarily for spoken word content (as opposed to Logic Pro or Garage Band which were built for music). It works on both iPhone and iPad, enabling a very natural touch input paradigm for editing your audio that both Alec and I prefer to use.
In our stream, we talked about the additional benefits when you edit on the iPad, including how using the Apple Pencil in this app feels like a remote control and which custom settings we use to edit.
We also covered details like Ferrite templates, the keyboard shortcuts, and a few of the downsides as well – it doesn’t have the same speed-changing capabilities as Logic, for example.
I really enjoyed talking with Alec—he’s a great guy—about this tool we both enjoy, especially because it’s changed how I edit audio and opened up where I can do my work.
Check out the clip on Twitch and follow my channel if you want to see future streams like this.1
If you didn’t already know, my podcast Smart Tech Today comes with a video feed now – you can download a full video feed in Podcasts, or subscribe to the YouTube channel to get the episodes every week, or watch live on Twitch every Monday at 4pm PST.
While the show is designed as an audio podcast, our network This Week in Tech produces the video so anyone can watch too – I have lots of fun being on camera with Mikah.
Being a podcast that’s also “video capable,” I’ve always thought it’s a shame that it’s not easier to listen when you want to, or watch when you want to, with a way to switch between both on the fly.
If you’re on Overcast user, you’re in luck – I’ve solved the problem in one direction, taking Overcast’s “Share URL with timestamp” Siri Shortcut and combining it with YouTube’s timestamps feature to let you jump into the video feed at a moment’s notice.1
On episode 14 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about what I saw at CES 2020.
But before I get to what we covered in the show, I have exciting news – Smart Tech Today is now available as a video show in addition to our regular podcast feed!
We’ve always had the cameras on for our livestream, but the show’s been doing well enough to add in video production as well.
So, make sure to subscribe on YouTube if you want to watch along afterwards, or add the video podcast feed to get them delivered directly in Apple Podcasts.
Today’s new shortcut is How far did I walk today? is designed for CES attendees but is also good for anyone really:
Looks at the Health app for total steps and distance for today, then formats the information to display in an alert or be spoken back from Siri.
Uses only the Apple Watch as the main source of data so no information is duplicated from the phone.
New shortcut “Which CES shuttle should I take?“ for CES attendees:
Pulls from a dictionary of CES hotel names and their associated shuttle #s, lets you choose from the names, then tells you which shuttle to take.
Also opens your final destination in Maps so you can follow along.
This afternoon, @kcjokes asked for a shortcut that can play a podcast based on the time of day:
Here’s a Personal Automation for Apple Watch that I’m running automatically at the start of my Walking workouts – Log UV index:
Gets the current weather at the current location and logs the UV index for the hour into the Health app, then displays it or speaks it back when run via Siri.
Includes “Get Device Name” and an “If” action to account for being run on the iPad, which does not have the Health app and would otherwise fail.
New shortcut Singalong for Apple Music users:
Turns on the Apple TV, asks if you want to Hand Off music to the TV from the current device, then opens the Music app and shows the Remote on the current device.
Sometimes you just have to make a meme into a shortcut:
Takes the “2020” meme with a line of text in the middle and uses a find & replace to swap out your own text, then copies it and opens Twitter. Your new input must be less than 30 characters to fit.
Self-search is a handy shortcut I built for Twitter users:
Using a Twitter username inputted on import and a keyword entered when the shortcut is run, this shortcut takes the info, URL-encodes it into a Twitter link, and opens into the app to show the results.
If you love The Office and want to have a random episode picked for you, this shortcut is for you:
Using a dictionary filled out with the season numbers and corresponding episode counts for each, this picks a random season, then episode, then displays it in an alert as Netflix opens on the Apple TV.
Works aloud when run from Siri; good for HomePod.
Just created this new shortcut Move from Ulysses to iA Writer:
Gets sheets from a group in Ulysses, asks which one to use, then adds it into iA Writer via their URL scheme. Only accepts text, so you’ll have to move over any images.
Federico Viticci, doing his usual excellent work on MacStories:
For the past several months, I’ve been working on a shortcut designed to be the ultimate assistant for Apple Music.
Called MusicBot, the shortcut encompasses dozens of different features and aims to be an all-in-one assistant that helps you listen to music more quickly, generate intelligent mixes based on your tastes, rediscover music from your library, control playback on AirPlay 2 speakers, and much more.
I poured hundreds of hours of work into MusicBot, which has gained a permanent spot on my Home screen. Best of all, MusicBot is available to everyone for free.
MusicBot is yet another one of Federico’s shortcuts that turns a vast number of functions into a single Siri Shortcut for you to use. Plus, look at that custom icon!
I quite literally have over 50 music-based shortcuts that this will be replacing.
On episode 11 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I covered a K-Pop rapper’s AirPods problem, Samuel L. Jackson on your Echo, and Sling TV on your Google Nest Hub:
