Quick thoughts that link out to other sites
From the LaunchBar release notes for v6.17 back in April:
Improved Shortcuts Support
* If a shortcut accepts files as an input, it’s now possible to send those files to the shortcut via Send-to (select a file in LaunchBar, press Tab, select the shortcut, hit Return).
* Shortcuts are now displayed with the icon that has been defined in Shortcuts.app
John Voorhees for MacStories (line breaks added for emphasis):
The sources above are the component parts of what Detail calls Scenes, which can use one or more sources to create a single-view Scene or a Combo Scene that comes in five different layouts.
That allows you to mix and match camera sources with screen-sharing sources and even other scenes into one composite video.
The result is a flexible system that can be easily adapted for video interviews, tutorials and help documentation, video conferencing apps like Zoom, and more.
Moreover, you can set up multiple scenes in advance and switch among them using keyboard shortcuts or Apple’s Shortcuts app.
I’ve had my eye on Detail for Mac for some time, and their latest Detail Duo for iPhone/iPad is intriguing too. Over on Mastodon, John and I had this back-and-forth about the update:
Ivan Mehta writing for TechCrunch:
Productivity-enhancing app Portal has launched a Mac app. The company helps users regain focus and become more productive with immersive backgrounds and natural sounds.[…] Portal for Mac has more than 80 environments to choose from, which include high-quality looping videos captured by the company’s own team.
Further on:
Users can control the sound and motion or change the background through the menu bar icon too. Given that Portal is a native Mac app, it integrates with Siri Shortcuts as well.
I’m a huge fan of apps like Endel for its generative audio soundscapes – Portal looks like an interesting visual version of the same concept.
Apple uses a default naming scheme for all kinds of image files, including screenshots, on the iPhone. But for many of us, this isn’t ideal.
Thankfully, there’s a trick to get around this and use custom file names for your screenshots on the iPhone. It involves setting up a shortcut in the Shortcuts app.
David Pierce for The Verge (line breaks added for emphasis):
If you squint a little, you can see the larger vision here. Apple imagines an app ecosystem in which data flows freely between devices: you take a picture here, edit it there, share it over there, save it in that place, all with a few drags and drops.
It wants to make apps work between and across your devices.
You should be able to access your apps and the data inside them from just about anywhere on your device.
In Apple’s wildest dreams, apps aren’t each their own universe; they’re like stars in a solar system, each one part of a larger coherent thing.
Siri Shortcuts is a prominent example of how Apple has already deployed some major AI features. This offering works by offering recommendations based on your location, app usage, habits, time of the day, and more. So, for example, iOS has learned about my commuting habits and surfaces the playlist I typically stream when on the go at the relevant time of day.
Similarly, if you have an upcoming flight in your Calendar app, then the trip number and its updates will surface in Spotlight Search. Additionally, Apple Wallet may surface your saved boarding pass when the time comes. That’s not to mention that Maps could suggest directions to the correct airport, and Weather may display the forecast of your destination.
Siri Shortcuts can appear in the Notification Center, Spotlight Search, Siri Shortcuts widget, and other locations. After using your device for a while, you will notice the system suggesting all sorts of different actions and useful information based on your usual habits.
Tasks is one of my favorite to-do apps, and it has evolved a lot since I first wrote about it here on 9to5Mac. This week, Tasks was updated to version 3.0, which comes with a new design for the iOS app, a completely rebuilt macOS app, and new features like Tasks Cloud and collaboration
Plus, the goods:
Tasks has everything you expect from a great iOS and macOS app. It supports Dark Mode, drag-and-drop gestures, mouse and trackpad, multiple windows on iPad, and more. The app is even optimized for iPhone models with larger displays, featuring a two-column landscape layout. There’s also support for Siri Shortcuts, widgets, and Time Sensitive Notifications.
Congrats to developer Mustafa Yusuf on the big launch!
Get Tasks on the App Store and read about the update on 9to5Mac.
Darryl Dsouza for MacObserver:
When you enable iPhone Orientation Lock it prevents the device from switching to landscape mode every time you tilt it. However, Orientation Lock does not turn on and off based on the apps you’re using. Moreover, iOS doesn’t even provide an option to set up Orientation Lock separately for individual apps. And, this gets really frustrating because you have to access the Control Center and toggle it on and off depending on the app.
Fortunately, you can set up automation through the Shortcuts app that will automatically toggle on or off Orientation Lock based on the app you’re currently using.
@Timery on Mastodon:
Timery 1.5.3 is available! This update has four new Shortcuts actions and several small improvements & fixes!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1425368544
What’s new in Shortcuts:
• Start Recent Timer
• Find Recent Timers
• Export Saved Report
• Start Live ActivityWhat else is new:
• Improvements to reordering saved timers
• Easier-to-tap time-adjustment buttons
• More project colors for paid Toggl accounts
• Fix for exporting reports on Mac
• VoiceOver improvementsHere are some more details […]:
Developer Joe Hribar of Timery has revamped some of the Shortcuts actions for his app to activate the Live Activities feature, which begins a timer in the Dynamic Island if you have an iPhone 14 Pro – neat. 🤓
Check out the thread for more on the update and get Timery on the App Store.
Diego Jimenez on Twitter:
I made a quick Automation to protect my iPhone if someone steals it while unlocked:
If they turn on Airplane Mode (Find My), it asks for a passcode.
If wrong… it automatically locks the phone 🔒, turns ON all connectivity 📡 + Low Power Mode 🔋, and shares its current location📍
This is a clever use of the newest “Lock Screen” action available in iOS 16.5 – it’s a Personal Automation set up for the Airplane Mode trigger.
If your phone is already locked, a thief can’t get in to disable Find My; but, if your phone is grabbed out of your hands after entering your passcode, this shortcut will reverse any attempts to wipe the device, plus fully lock them out while enabling you to continue tracking it.
View the demo video on Twitter and check the ongoing thread for the latest version.
Lance Whitney for PCMag:
You probably spend a lot of time on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac running one task after another after another across a variety of apps. Think how much time you could save if you automated those tasks or combined them into a single action. You can do all that and more with Apple’s Shortcuts app.
This resource covers all the basics of Shortcuts – like how to run a shortcut, create a shortcut, create an automation, add shortcuts to the share sheet/widget/Apple Watch, and how to find shortcuts online.
Zach Knox, replying to my post about Discord timestamps:
I would also highly recommend Elsewhen, which has a shortcuts action to do exactly that apps.apple.com/us/app/elsewhen… (though of course learning how those timestamps work is still quite valuable!)
Zach is totally right, I’d forgotten about Elsewhen for Mac, iPad, and iPhone – a handy utility from developer Benjamin Cardy that shows a visual representation of the Discord timestamp formats.
Plus, Elsewhen includes another great feature for actually laying out alternate timezones for specific countries, for making announcement posts like I do with my streams:
@Zenitizer on Mastodon:
Dear Fediverse 👋 Zenitizer launched on the App Store today 🚀🥳
🧘 Clean & Simple Meditation Timer
🎵 Soothing Sounds
❤️ Apple Health Support
🪄 Siri & Shortcuts Support
⭐️ Goals and Streaks
👀 Glanceable Widgets and Apple Watch Complications1️⃣ Download: zenitizer.app/install
Congrats to developer Manuel Kehl on his launch last Thursday. 👏
Last Thursday, I streamed a live test of Apple’s new release of Final Cut Pro for iPad for about 2 hours, covering:
Overall, I added 90 chapter markers at each significant moment in the stream, so jump into the video and skip around to the bits that you’re interested in watching – I had some genuine moments of joy while discovering new features, like this one:
Here’s the full list of chapters:
Twitter user @LoriTira shared this shortcut for set Clock alarms for today’s Calendar events:
You can use the apple shortcut app to build a shortcut to do that or use this one already coded:https://t.co/BgLUqJioSO
You could than create an automation in the shortcut app to execute it as often as you need.
— LoriTira (@LoriTira) April 27, 2023
The shortcut looks at all the upcoming events for the next day and repeats through the list, subtracting 5 minutes from the start time and setting your alarm so you have time to get ready before the meeting starts.
As someone who doesn’t often have meetings and doesn’t need to check their calendar every day, I could see this being useful as a daily Automation to alert me to the occasional call I might’ve missed on my schedule.
Get the shortcut from LoriTira’s tweet.
P.S. Add additional Filters to add more criteria, like specifying only a certain set of Calendars or “Is Not All Day” events.
Twitter user @colleidoscope shared this shortcut for quickly searching replies and quotes to a specific tweet:
with how shit the reply sorting has gotten ive created a crude ios shortcut to quickly search replies and quotes https://t.co/SwzvEM85iP
— sonderful (@colleidoscope) April 27, 2023
The shortcut scrapes the current tweet’s ID from the URL, then takes advantage of Twitter’s search operators to build an advanced query:
(min_faves:1 OR min_replies:1)
(-filter:safe OR filter:safe) include:nativeretweets (conversation_id:ID OR quoted_tweet_id:ID)
Twitter’s quality control issues notwithstanding, this is useful for finding that one quote tweet you swore you saw, or digging through a massive list of replies from popular accounts – what a clever use of Twitter Search.
Stephen Robles of AppleInsider shared a shortcut for redirecting YouTube links into the app:
Or, long press the YT link, run this Shortcut, you’re watching in the app: https://t.co/oFQBvwkkf7
— Stephen Robles (@stephenrobles) April 27, 2023
The shortcut works by replacing the https with youtube – using Stephen’s own YouTube channel URL as an example, it’d appear like youtube://www.youtube.com/@beardfm.
Time to add this to my YouTube collection 🙂
Get the Watch In YouTube shortcut from Stephen’s tweet.
Jesse Grosjean of Hog Bay Software wrote about the 14 new Shortcuts actions he’s added to his app Bike Outliner:
Bike provides a complete suite of shortcut actions. You can create, edit, move, and delete rows. You can also search for rows and expand or collapse the outline.
In the post, he shares the example Save Link shortcut, plus this tutorial below – and he’s left a comment on the post with more shortcuts to try out:
Read the full post, plus check out Bike Outliner on the Mac App Store or on the web. (via MacStories, plus their original review).
I had the pleasure of being a guest on this week’s Clockwise podcast on Relay.FM alongside guest Kelly Guimont and hosts Mikah Sargent & Dan Moren. We talked about:
Whether we’d install a third-party app store on our phones, our most anticipated Matter devices, the tasks we’d pawn off onto an AI chatbot, and our non-holiday holiday traditions.
Always a pleasure to be a guest on Clockwise — and no I swear I’m not just a series of Shortcuts…
I had the pleasure of being a guest host on this week’s iOS Today:
Matthew Cassinelli joins Rosemary Orchard this week to supercharge iPhone/iPad shortcuts with some very useful apps that enhance functionality. Matthew also explains App Shortcuts and how they’re organized in iOS 16.
Thanks to Rosemary for having me on again — and Mikah for taking a week off so I could host in his place! ?