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Links Siri Shortcuts

Matt Galligan’s Shared Shortcuts on Notion

Last week, I came across a useful shortcut for calling into meetings, tweeted out by Matt Galligan, former founder of Circa and now CEO of Interchange1:

The shortcut grabs your next calendar event, extracts the phone number, and dials it for you – with a trigger phrase set up, you can just say “Dial In” to Siri and it’ll just work.

Matt also has a neat way for sharing this and his other shortcuts: using Notion.

Categories
Siri Shortcuts

Preventing food from expiring with two Siri Shortcuts

I have a bad habit of wasting food. I will buy groceries, eat most of it, but usually end up letting one or two things go bad just because I don’t think about it.

It’s probably because I don’t cook enough, but it’s still a problem I want to avoid with longer-term items who expiration dates I rarely think about when I buy them.

This is one of those things I genuinely try to work on, but every time I think about it I can’t remember when I bought or defrosted something.

So when earlier this week, the ground beef I had taken out of the freezer was no longer good, I got fed up with myself for doing it again and decided to change something.

So, I made two Siri Shortcuts for logging and checking expirations to make the process easier on myself, more reliable, and most of all: automated (because that part’s just fun for me too).

Categories
Apps

CalZones is the only scheduling app you need to plan across timezones

Developer David Smith has released a new app today called CalZones that is a combination calendar and timezone converter.

Available for $4.99 via the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, the app makes it as easy as possible to see what time it is where somebody else lives and arrange a meeting at the correct time across timezones and work schedules.

I’ve never found a calendar app that lets me have timezones presets visualized so easily, giving me the correct the information of what time it is across the world, and packing an impressive amount of utility into multiple small spaces.

Here’s how Calzone accomplishes all that.

Categories
Siri Shortcuts

7 Shortcuts for meetings and making new contacts

After a meeting with someone new yesterday, I realized there was a few places where I could have used the Shortcuts app to speed up the processes around our encounter.

Before the meeting, I was headed somewhere new and needed to figure out how to get there on time.

During the meeting, I was fumbling with my phone a bit, handing it to them to type in their contact information, and didn’t have an easy way to share mine either. Plus, I dealt with everything after the meeting too – writing down notes, sharing my info, and following up later.

From all this, I noticed a few repeating patterns, that could be automated using mostly default apps – the data I need already exists or can be entered on the fly.

So, I came up with a few jobs to be done:

  • Knowing when to leave to get to the meeting on time
  • Getting directions to the meeting when it’s time to leave
  • Sharing your “business card” contact information
  • Logging someone else’s contact information
  • Taking helpful meeting notes afterwards
  • Following up with them the same day (or later)
  • Scheduling that follow up if it’s not today
Categories
Podcasts

It’s Pretty Much All My Fault

New episode of Supercomputer out:

This week, Alex invites a DIFFERENT Matthew onto the show to talk about their home automation setup.

While I was with family, Alex took the opportunity to chat with their spouse Mattie about home automation, which was an absolute delight of a conversation.

Categories
Podcasts

So Mini Problems, So Little Time

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Alex and Matthew review the new iPad mini! Find out where the Mini fits in their lives.

Two iPad nerds talking about the latest iPad release – my favorite type of episode to record.

Interestingly, we both came to the same conclusion…

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Links Siri Shortcuts

A Pair of Shortcuts to Log Podcast Episodes in Airtable and Play One at Random in Overcast

Julia M. on her blog Rampant Procrastination:

1. Open the information tab in Overcast of a podcast you wish to log to Airtable.

2.Select the text of the information tab from the podcast title down, grabbing as much of the episode description as you would like to be included in the notes field in Airtable. Press copy to put this text on the clipboard.

3. This shortcut is used as a sharesheet extension, so press the share button and select Shortcuts, then run the shortcut to log the podcast.”

This post is a great write-up from Julia explaining a way she’s saving podcast episodes to Airtable, plus pulling from that database to play one again at random.

She has little technique for grabbing information from Overcast on the clipboard before sharing the episode, and wrote up how she’s extracting the information from once it’s in the shortcut before sending it through Airtable’s API.

Definitely subscribe to her new blog and give her a follow.

If you have a blog post about Shortcuts, always feel free to tweet me the link. I post some of them here and in my newsletter too.

Categories
Podcasts

Into The Weeds (feat. Rosemary Orchard)

New episode of Supercomputer out:

The fabulous Rosemary Orchard joins as the first guest on Supercomputer – and she blows your hosts’ minds.

We were thrilled to have our first guest on Supercomputer, and who else could it be but Rosemary Orchard from Automators.FM.

Categories
Podcasts

I Get Most Work Done On My Phone

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Your hosts discuss the primary computer for most people: their phones.

In a little bit of a shorter episode than last week, Alex and I discussed how many people really only use their phone as their primary computer.

Categories
Podcasts

The Video Production Can Of Worms

New episode of Supercomputer out:

This week, Alex shows Matthew how little he knows about video production.

This long episode is one of our first deep dives into a specific productivity topic, which I enjoyed because I benefited so much from the clarification.

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Links Siri Shortcuts

Six Colors: Simple sleep tracking with Shortcuts

Dan Moren, writing for Six Colors:

What I really wanted was for iOS to be a bit more intelligent. For example, it could realize that when I turn off my bedside light (which is a HomeKit-compatible Philips Hue bulb) I’m going to bed. And then, when I pick up my phone in the morning it could log that I’m awake, and store the resulting information in the Health app.

Alas, that functionality doesn’t exist. So I made it myself using a pair of Shortcuts.

While I was away at Disneyland, this great set of shortcuts snuck by me.

This is the exact approach I have so often – I think “why can’t my pocket computer do this?” and then Shortcuts lets me roll my own solution.

Read the link on Six Colors.

Categories
Podcasts

I Have Control Issues

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Alex and Matthew discuss the disappearance of Control Center – and how it overlaps with Shortcuts.

Control Center is super useful, but many people don’t realize you can automate much of what’s available there.

Categories
Siri Shortcuts

How to create a deep link to file in iCloud Drive so you can directly access it later

If you’re looking to access one of your files by clicking on a URL instead of navigating through your Files app, you can copy a link to that file using the Share sheet on iOS.

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Siri Shortcuts

‘Worth A Look. Something For Everyone.’

Tim Cook just quote tweeted me.

Categories
Podcasts

The Case of the Last Case

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Alex and Matthew reflect on the month’s Apple-related news, giving the hot takes some room and seeing how we’re feeling after some extra context. Plus, there’s a celebrity appearance.

Continuing along with new topics, Alex and I are starting an occasional “Cold Takes” show to cover news in the last few months with some added perspective that time gives everyone.

Categories
Podcasts

There Are Many Like It, But This Home Screen Is Mine

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Alex and Matthew cover their home screens, so open the episode to check out the shots.

In episode 21, we wanted to refocus our subject matter more for each episode.

We’ll be doing an occasional cycle of shows – a good topic, some guest appearances, a look back at the news of the last few months, and more philosophical episode that takes things to a higher level.

We’re always looking for diverse and interesting guests, so please send us recommendations at [email protected].

Plus, we started a Patreon for anyone who feels like supporting the show. We’re gearing up the patronage rewards, but rest assured the show is free and it’s not required. That being said, we really appreciate everyone who’s signed up so far.

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Podcasts Siri Shortcuts Video

How to jump between the audio and video of Supercomputer

For episode 19 of Supercomputer, instead of hitting the “call” button to record, we pressed “video chat” and proceed to produce our podcast. I edited out some moments, added chapter markers for the audio file, and uploaded the video to YouTube.

This last week, for episode 20, I also added visual chapters, actually used Alex’s correct audio file, and shared our second video recording to YouTube.

But podcasts are for audio, right?

Categories
Podcasts

Behind The Cute Curtain

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Matthew and Alex talk about going from beginner shortcuts to the next level with the “If” scripting action, plus how this all could be a bit easier.

After last week’s livestream, I explained some of what “conditionals” are – if that sounds confusing, it’s worth listening.

Part of the episode is about breaking down barriers to concepts used in programming hidden behind fancy language, so we’ll explore more topics like this in the future.

Listen to the show:

Categories
Podcasts

Consumers and Their Fragile Minds

New episode of Supercomputer out:

Matthew and Alex are here for the New Apple.

In a classic coffee rant, I got to release all the feeling I built up in our time away from the show – I am more excited than ever for the future of Apple.

Plus, I make a call for app developers to come back.

Listen to the show:

Categories
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.