Author: Matthew Cassinelli

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Siri Shortcuts

Lightroom adds native Import action to Shortcuts app, first of its kind

Yours truly, writing for iMore:

For users who’ve updated to the latest version of Adobe Lightroom for iOS, there is a special surprise waiting – a new dedicated Lightroom action for the Shortcuts app, Apple’s newest automation tool for building custom Siri Shortcuts.

This enables users to batch import photos to Lightroom, apply the built-in Presets, and otherwise act on your photos in the process of custom shortcuts in the Shortcuts app, opening up mobile photography to deeper automation potential.

Lightroom is the first native action from a third-party app added to Shortcuts since the days of Workflow, so hopefully this is a sign of more actions to come.

Some things to note:

  1. RAW support is RAW-only, otherwise the RAW+JPG gets imported as a JPG
  2. The action passes content through as output, so you can put Delete Photos right after and they’ll be removed from Photos too
  3. Applying the Presets only takes advantage of the defaults, but hopefully this will change one day.

I’m super excited, because this was a big sticking point in The Verge’s review, and it’s hopefully the first of many Shortcuts actions.

Head over to my friend Shawn Blanc’s site for a good example shortcut – he selects photos and uses the Shortcuts action extension to add them, but what he doesn’t mention is this works great with drag & drop on iPad too.

See the full linked post.

Categories
Podcasts

The OG GTD

New episode of Supercomputer out:

This week, Matthew and Alex explore some of their holiday experiments, as well as how to value your time as much as you value your computer.

We’re back from the winter break with a new, 30-minute episode covering what we were up to over the holidays (spoiler: tidying).

Alex and I talked about getting back into the swing of things and teased some plans for the new year – enjoy!

Listen to the show:

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Siri Shortcuts

Using Shortcuts to open into Twitter Lists

One of my long-favorite shortcuts that I use all the time is the one that I’ve built to open the Twitter app and into my lists that I’ve curated over the years.

When I run the shortcut, I can choose from the titles of my lists, and then Shortcuts builds the deep link into Twitter, then opens into that List for me.

Continue reading “Using Shortcuts to open into Twitter Lists”
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Podcasts Siri Shortcuts

Automating blog posts for my podcast Supercomputer

If you were a visitor to my site in November, you might’ve noticed a lack of posts on the blog. While I’ve been producing videos and podcasts the whole time, I had a mental block on creating the short posts here on my website for each and just didn’t bother to write them up.

As we’re approaching the end of the year, I decided to get my act together and automate more of blog posts for my work, starting with podcast episodes.

That way I’d have no excuse not to do them, I could spread the news for my podcast more easily, and along the way put together a handy shortcut that I repurpose for my YouTube videos, articles on other sites, and eventually embedded shortcuts here on my blog.

To accomplish this, I built a Post Podcast shortcut that I can run each Friday when we release a new episode of Supercomputer.

Continue reading “Automating blog posts for my podcast Supercomputer”
Categories
Podcasts

I Can’t Be Trusted With A Computer

New episode of Supercomputer out:

This week, Matthew talks about getting his work done entirely on iOS, and Alex talks about her love of tomatoes.

I’m enjoying making this podcast so much.

We keep getting better and better each week – excited for next year.

Listen to the show:

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Podcasts

Least Sexy, But Amazing

New episode of Supercomputer out:

This week, Matthew ponders why you can’t get real work done on iOS, and Alex works herself into a tizzy about Pokemon and old men.

After another round of iOS maligning over the weekend, I started to get a little riled up on this episode.

No, I didn’t write the show notes ?

Listen to the show:

Categories
Podcasts

No One Is Taking Away Your Computer

New episode of Supercomputer out:

In a caffeine-fueled rage, Alex & Matthew pleasantly discuss the viability of iPad Pros as computers.

I got a little hyped up on espresso and started ranting this week.

But, it turns out, I had something important to say.

Listen to the show:

Categories
Podcasts

Rainbow Gesture

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Your hosts’ iPads have arrived! Matthew wants to change the way we think about the philosophy of Apple, and Alex is very concerned about folios big and small.

This week, Alex and I talked using tablets & their covers.

Plus, I tried to reflect on how the Apple community talks about the leaders of the company.

Listen to the show:

Categories
Podcasts

We’re in The Medium Place

Episode 11 of Supercomputer is now out – listen in if you’re curious about the new iPad Pros.

Alex talks about her concerns over USB-C, I tried to talk her down from the ledge, and we both ended up convincing ourselves to be excited about the new iPads.

Plus, we talked about the changes to Shortcuts 2.1 that I covered in my video earlier this week.

With this episode, we’re also making the switch to releasing on Fridays – we’re trying to guarantee the show is as good as possible, plus give us flexibility on recording days to account for any events as well as our schedule. New episodes every Friday – Supercomputer for the weekends!

Start prepping your daily routine plans for an upcoming episode, because we’ll be walking through those shortly – in the meantime, drop us any shortcuts requests in our submission form, we’ll be answering a few soon!

Get the episode:

P.S. Would anyone listen in Spotify or on YouTube? Let me know!

Categories
Siri Shortcuts Video

Look ahead at your day with “Agenda”

Today I released my fifth YouTube video, focusing on building an agenda for the day and walking people through the process of building it.

This is a full-Siri shortcut, meaning it’ll work on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod, and CarPlay, with Siri speaking out the results to you:

Play

Continue reading “Look ahead at your day with “Agenda””
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Links Siri Shortcuts

Apple Shortcuts: The Bicycle for the Mind is Back, but it’s Electric

Stu Maschowitz of Prolost has put a fantastic piece out on the Shortcuts app:

“To me, whether Jobs intended it this way or not, the “bicycle for the mind” is the tool that empowers you to repurpose it for your specific needs, not just to consume things with it, or use it in the same way as everyone else.”

Continue reading “Apple Shortcuts: The Bicycle for the Mind is Back, but it’s Electric”
Categories
Siri Shortcuts Video

How to make a GIF on iOS: Shortcuts in under 3 minutes [Video]

On Friday, I published a shorter video demonstrating how to build a custom shortcut in the Shortcuts app in just under 3 minutes:

For the topic, I picked “how to make a GIF” because it’s not that easy on iOS, and everyone has a library full of bursts and Live Photos that are stuck in the camera roll.

With just a few actions, you can put together an animated loop of your bursts, Live Photos, or sets of photos, and easily share it with people.

Get the shortcut here if you want to make your own.

I could have made some improvements to the shortcut. Since I filmed this without a script, I didn’t add in Save to Photo Album at the end so that every GIF you made would be saved automatically – this is important because most people run shortcuts from the main library view, but you can only see the GIF in my version if you open the shortcut editor.1

I’m working on some new shorter videos, along with a longer main video each week – working out the process now, but I should be able to ramp up to get more videos out for all of you.

In the meantime, let me know if there’s anything particular you’d like to see from my channel2.

And, as always, linking to the video or retweeting it goes a long way – thank you to everyone who’s been supporting me so far.

  1. It also could have all been built using Find Photos to give you more control; getting into that level of detail, however, definitely takes more than 3 minutes, so I’ll have to work sharing the best examples with the least compromises. ↩
  2. People left more comments that I’m still a robot who doesn’t blink – even though I totally did once! It’s apparently difficult for me to blink naturally with a bright light in my face while trying to communicate the intricacies of this app on the fly. ↩
Categories
Podcasts

The Allegory of Dark Mode


On Thursday, Alex and I released our 9th episode of Supercomputer into the world. Titled “The Allegory of Dark Mode”, this episode follows up from our show two weeks ago on task managers.

After a short one-week break, we broke back into how we use our devices to get things done, plus went off a bit on how I use Twitter.

Near the end things got weirdly philosophical, which I’m totally okay with.

We talked about and shared a good number of shortcuts we use in the show notes, so if you’re not already subscribe to the show and add them as you listen along.

I also started a submission form for Shortcuts questions, so feel free to submit any places you’re getting stuck or shortcuts problems in the Airtable form any time!

Next week we’ll be talking about the home – HomePod, Apple TV, HomeKit, and more – looking forward to episode 10!

Listen to the show:
– Website
– iTunes
– Overcast

Categories
Siri Shortcuts

My Top 10 Shortcuts, plus my first guest video

Last week, I published my third YouTube video. This one covered 10 great shortcuts that I’ve built over the years, with quick descriptions and demonstrations for each:1

Continue reading “My Top 10 Shortcuts, plus my first guest video”
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Siri Shortcuts

Everything Went Better Than Expected

I am incredibly amazed right now, because I launched my YouTube channel on Monday and my first video has gotten 20,000 views along with 2,304 subscribers as of publishing – last week I had 2.

Thank you so, so much if you shared my video over the past few days. I asked and you delivered, which really was heartwarming to see and it made a huge difference. Special thanks to Myke Hurley and Jason Snell for mentioning it on Upgrade, as well as Lory Gil for inviting me to link at the bottom of my iMore articles (which we’ve been updating with new information) – both helped a ton.

I’m still trying to get it linked elsewhere because I really do want as many people to learn as possible and help them avoid confusion, so I’m excited to see how it keeps growing over time.1

Continue reading “Everything Went Better Than Expected”
Categories
Siri Shortcuts

The MacStories Review of iOS 12 (and Shortcuts)

Every year, it’s a staple in the Apple community to read Federico Viticci’s in-depth review of the latest version of iOS.

Federico has been running MacStories for years and always spends the summer drafting massive, book-length guides to the new changes that come to Apple’s iPhone and iPad software, quickly becoming the go-to place to pay attention when the new release drops.

This time, it’s very much the same, with Viticci publishing his entire review with 16 individual sections as pages (and 1 page for credits). Here’s the subhead introduction:

After years of unabated visual and functional changes, iOS 12 is Apple’s opportunity to regroup and reassess the foundation before the next big step – with one notable exception.

Continue reading “The MacStories Review of iOS 12 (and Shortcuts)”
Categories
Siri Shortcuts

The Automators podcast: my Shortcuts deep dive!

I had the honor of being on Relay FM‘s great new show Automators this week. Hosted by David Sparks and Rosemary Orchard, the show dives deep into automation with Apple products and covers a whole range of apps and devices.

With iOS 12 launching on Monday, David and Rosemary had me on their show to talk all about Shortcuts and walk people through two of my custom shortcuts – Open Twitter Lists and Golden Hour.

Continue reading “The Automators podcast: my Shortcuts deep dive!”
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Siri Shortcuts

Sharing about Shortcuts: in audio and video form

With the imminent release of the Shortcuts app for iOS, I’ve been hard at work creating new ways to share with everyone.

After Workflow was acquired by Apple, I took a contract position covering support while the process transitioned to Apple Support. I didn’t want to leave the Workflow community hanging without someone to help with problems, and in my time there helped thousands of people with their workflows – and read every tweet about us.

I had joined the small team to help people learn how to use this thing, and once I saw them continue to update it I took a leap of faith and left early before I learned too much about the plans.

Seeing Shortcuts at WWDC was awesome and a wonderful confirmation that this app is the future of automation on iOS.

Plus, while I was there, I met Alex Cox and she kept telling me to make a podcast about it all. When she said she’d host it with me, I immediately said yes, and Supercomputer was born.

Continue reading “Sharing about Shortcuts: in audio and video form”
Categories
Links Siri Shortcuts

» Mastering Apple Music: my favorite shortcut (on The Sweet Setup)

Last week over on The Sweet Setup, I posted one of my personal favorite shortcuts that I built back when I worked at Workflow.

It interacts with all the Apple Music Mixes curated for me, letting me select which one to use, then lets me choose from five options:

I run this shortcut almost every day, either updating a playlist to the Master versions I’ve created, jumping in to pick something, and shuffling all the tracks when I don’t want to choose.

Continue reading “» Mastering Apple Music: my favorite shortcut (on The Sweet Setup)”
Categories
Tips & Tricks

How to buy Disney/Marvel/Star Wars movies to watch on Apple TV in 4K

When you’re trying to buy any of the latest 4K Disney films like Star Wars and the Marvel movies, you’ll quickly find they’re not available in iTunes. For some reason the partnership hasn’t shaken out properly, which I’m hoping changes soon, but for now if you buy one in iTunes Movies it will only be 1080p for $19.99.

You might think that Movies Anywhere would handle this, because it makes movies you’ve bought on iTunes, Prime Video, VUDU, Google Play, or Fandango Now available to watch on each of the other services. But, it’s not that easy.

All of these Disney movies are available in 1080p on iTunes for $19.99 and on VUDU the 4K version (called UHD on their site) costs $24.99. However, even if you’ve unlocked the HD version by buying it in iTunes, you can’t just split the difference and pay $5 to upgrade to 4K within VUDU.

Instead, you’re stuck buying a second version of the same movie for full price, like I had to do for The Last Jedi.

But, if you buy through VUDU first in 4K, you can watch it in full resolution using their own Apple TV app1 instead of iTunes.

Note: When you’re trying to Own the movie instead of Rent, make sure to hit the dropdown and select UHD for 4K instead of HDX for 1080p quality.

And if you want watch it on a smaller screen in HD or add it offline on one of your devices, the movie purchase will still automatically sync to your iTunes account via Movies Anywhere in the background.

I just bought Avengers: Infinity War on VUDU’s website, and when I opened it in the TV app moments later I could already hit Play and start watching.


For me, this is a pretty solid solution, because now I can watch the same thing on my TV or iPhone or iPad—in the best quality available for the device—without paying for it twice.

  1. If you get the regular app and you have automatic downloads turned on for your Apple TV, the app should just appear once you’ve “purchased” it. ↩