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Automating with Shortcuts and macOS Folder Actions »

From Jason Snell at Six Colors:

Folder Actions is pretty clever—you can run scripts when items are added or removed from a folder, when the folder is opened or closed, or when the window of that folder is moved in Finder.

Unfortunately, this is a feature that is wired directly into AppleScript. So in order to use a version of my existing shortcut with Folder Actions, I needed to write a three-line AppleScript script:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
    tell application "Shortcuts Events" to run the shortcut named "Apple Result Transcriptor" with input added_items
end adding folder items to

Pretty dumb — for those keeping score we’ve now gone from Audio Hijack to AppleScript to Shortcuts in order to get what we want. (I could’ve rewritten my Shortcut in AppleScript, but… I don’t want to do that!) And yet also pretty brilliant, because I’m using a 21-year-old OS feature to run a Shortcut, an automation system that didn’t appear on the Mac until 2021.

Neat feature – and I agree with Jason’s conclusions at the end about Automations on the Mac.

Read the full story on Six Colors.

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Apple Music ‘Discovery Station’ goes live for subscribers »

From Zac Hall at 9to5Mac:

Discovery Station is algorithmically based on a user’s music taste similar to Your name’s Station.

The key difference with the new station, however, is that it shouldn’t play songs from your library or playlists.

Plus, you can start the station using the Play Music action in Shortcuts – here’s my new shortcut to do just that.

View the full article on 9to5Mac and get my folder of Apple Music shortcuts in the Shortcuts Library.

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Interactive Widgets Are Built Using App Intents: What That Means For Shortcuts »


Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory speaking on The Talk Show #382, starting at 1:13:23 (transcribed and lightly edited for text):

I see a lot of opportunities there for developers to make the widgets just come alive. I think it’s a great little thing that they’ve done.

The side effect of this, I think is—even kind of probably better in the long term—is that that way you do this is something that’s sort of like a little shortcut. And it’s gonna expose a lot of developers to the Shortcuts technology.

So like that button that’s on your widget that says, oh, play this radio station? Well, I’m obviously gonna write a shortcut that says, play this radio station. So you can automate that. So, like, if I go into my Focus mode, or if I get home, it starts playing the radio station on the kitchen HomePod.

And for me that’s the thing that really is powerful because it takes that interaction and makes it something that you can use throughout your life. That’s for me the most interesting thing, that’s why we’re talking about vision OS and all these other things is interactions that fit into your life, are really – that’s the goal.

That’s the thing I love doing the most.

Lovely sentiment – Craig gets it.

Listen to the full episode and check out Iconfactory.

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The must-try iPhone shortcut to help you remember everything »

From Kurt Knutsson of the CyberGuy Report over on Yahoo:

With the power of technology at our fingertips, it’s becoming easier to manage daily life, even for those grappling with issues such as short-term memory loss. Apple’s “Remember This” shortcut is one such tool that acts as an invaluable assistant for memory support and mindfulness.

This shortcut lets you quickly build a visual and textual log of your daily activities and serves as a handy digital journal.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on setting it up and using it effectively.

I missed sharing about this shortcut when it was originally released by Apple back in May – worth checking out for sure.

Read the full article.

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Automators Talk Personal Automation Fun »

From Rosemary Orchard and David Sparks on Automators on Relay FM:

Rose and David share a collection of their favorite personal automations ranging from task and project management to home automation.

My pals Rosemary and David talked about their latest automation adventures on, well, Automators – highly recommend the show.

Listen the podcast.

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What’s New in Shortcuts – Issue 98

From Issue 98 of my Shortcuts newsletter:

Welcome to Issue 98 of What’s New in Shortcuts!

Since the last issue in mid-July, news has been a bit quiet on the Shortcuts front thanks to a delayed second public beta – developer beta 3 was a bit rough, and now beta 4 is out today along with the public beta late in the he day.

As such, I held off on a few stories related to beta features that I have yet to cover, so my Automations and Widget coverage are coming tomorrow morning instead.

However, I did discover a new action in the betas, plus uploaded my new Threads scraping tool to the Library too – shortcuts are live now, and stories on those are coming later this week as well.

Otherwise, I published a couple of holdover posts on Threads, a few interesting tips related to power user features you might use if you’re a Shortcuts fan, and a series of linked posts to check out.

Until next issue, here’s what’s new in Shortcuts:

Read the full issue on MailerLite.

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How to Get a Custom Alert When Your iPhone Reaches Full Charge »

From MakeUseOf:

Are you worried about leaving your iPhone to charge for extended periods and what it can do to your battery life? While your device notifies you when the battery percentage drops below 20% and 10%, there’s no other way to know when it’s fully charged without manually checking.

But having to constantly check if your iPhone is fully charged can be an inconvenience. The good news is, with the built-in Shortcuts app, you can set up a custom alert that triggers when your iPhone reaches full charge. We’ll show you how to do it:

Read the full article.

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How to put two shortcuts in one small widget »

From Cult Of Mac:

A lot of shortcuts come in pairs. I have one shortcut that sets my phone to light mode and bumps up the text size for taking screenshots; a corresponding one sets my phone back to dark mode and lowers the text size again. On my Mac, I have a shortcut that turns on my Podcasting focus, launches Logic, Chrome and Skype, and hides everything else; a matching one turns off the focus and opens all my other apps back up.

It’s natural that you might want to put two matching shortcuts in one small widget. Now, in iOS 17, that’s possible:

Read the full article.

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iPhone 15 Pro Action Button Option for Shortcuts Potentially Revealed in iOS 17 Code »

From Steve Moser at MacRumors:

According to the code found in ‌iOS 17‌ beta 4, the Action button could have nine different options that users can customize and assign to different actions. While the code only lists feature names related to the Action button, we can infer what most of them will be able to do:
[…]
Shortcuts: As on the ‌Apple Watch Ultra‌, this option would let users run any shortcut they have created or downloaded from the Shortcuts app, such as sending a message, playing a playlist, or controlling smart home devices.

If the Action button is coming from Apple Watch Ultra, it will surely support Shortcuts – the question is, do we only get one shortcut for the button at all times? Apple definitely needs a more advanced interface for picking which shortcut works on the Action button – I suggest Focus modes.

Read the full article.

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How to change back to the old Twitter app icon on iOS »

From TechCrunch:

As our Twitter apps are updating to now be called “X,” you might long for the old blue bird logo. It harkens back to a similar time, when Twitter certainly had its issues, but at least it was not owned by Elon Musk. Thanks to the shortcuts app on iOS, we can kid ourselves into believing that Twitter is still being run by a different short-sighted billionaire, rather than this even shorter-sighted one. Lucky us!

Here’s how you can change your X icon back to Twitter again:

As I joked on Twi…er, X… “Who’d have thought the world’s primary use case for Shortcuts would be app icon replacement”?

Read the full article (h/t 9to5Mac and iMore).

P.S. I just so happened to publish a guide on this method a few days ago.

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Test This iOS 17 Soundboard App With Interactive Widgets »

From @leomehlig:

iOS 17 only alert ⚠️‼️?

Using the new interactive widgets, I’ve built a soundboard app, which you can use right from your lock and Home Screen (turn on sound to hear them).

Early beta is already on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/tAISw1v8 pic.twitter.com/mPgdW7UEch

Back in June, I saw this tweet from Leo Mehlig, developer of Structured, teasing a new soundboard app he’s working on that uses the new interactive widget capabilities – in theory, this could even work from an iPhone on StandBy… ?

View the demo video in the tweet or join the TestFlight.

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How to Open Threads Profiles from Mastodon and Twitter Directly in the Threads App »

Federico Viticci of MacStories:

Instagram just rolled out Threads, the company’s new text-based social network that’s been advertised over the past few weeks as an alternative to Twitter. I’m trying out Threads (you can find my account at threads.net/@viticci) and in the process of setting up the list of people I want to follow, I immediately run into an annoying issue that I fixed with a shortcut.
[…]
However, when I click on profile URLs from the popular app Ivory, I get an error because the app thinks I clicked on a Mastodon profile URL:
[…]
It’s not any better on the Twitter website: after logging in with my account and clicking on some profile URLs, I was presented with Threads webpages that do not have a Follow button at all:

Federico solves the problem with OCR and, of all things, Back Tap – and it works really well.

View the story on MacStories.

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Send Your Feedback to Apple About App Intents

Michael Gorbach, engineering manager on the Shortcuts team:

For those that have adopted App Intents in their apps, or are considering it: What are the main frustrations / limitations you have hit? FB numbers are great, but in this case not required!

Now’s the perfect time after 2 developer betas and the public beta on the horizon – if you have something to voice to Apple about App Shortcuts, now is the time!

View the post on Mastodon.

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How to build an App Intents Spotlight integration using Shortcuts »

Antoine Van Der Lee on his blog SwiftLee:

App Intents have been new since iOS 16 and offer a programmatic way to service your app’s content and functionality to Siri and the Shortcuts app. New in iOS 17 is the option to surface App Shortcuts integrated into Spotlight, making your app’s functionality even more discoverable.

App Intents are the engine behind many features like Widgets and Live Activities. By using them smartly, you’ll create a reusable framework for your app’s functionality. For example, the App Intent we’re creating for Spotlight Shortcuts could be reused for interactive widgets

What a great walkthrough – here’s the sections:

View the full post on avanderlee.com (via Justin Ferrell).

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ShortCircuit provides customized ChatGPT experience in a premium app »

Joe Fabisevich on Mastodon:

After 10 days of App Store rejections I’m so excited to say, Short Circuit is finally in the App Store! 28 days ago I started built a prototype of Siri powered by ChatGPT, and was immediately drawn to the idea of a premium-feeling iOS, iPad, and Mac app for ChatGPT. This amazing technology deserves a good user experience, and we gave it one.

Partnering with @Soroush to make that happen has been a dream, and I’m so excited to share Short Circuit with you.

Make sure to check out features like the Side Chats, the multiple Personality profiles you can add, and custom level of Creativity in your responses.

Read the full thread on Mastodon and get Short Circuit on the App Store.

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Fantastical gets updated Shortcuts actions »

Jason Snell for Six Colors:

Flexibits just released Fantastical 3.7.9, which adds a bunch of new Shortcuts actions, including the ability to filter events from a given Calendar Set in a given date range, and the ability to generate a simple schedule for a given day.

Read the post on Six Colors and get the Fantastical update (via Zsolt Benke on Mastodon).

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LaunchBar adds improved Shortcuts support »

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

Get LaunchBar for Mac.

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Detail: A Modern, Machine Learning-Powered Approach to Video »

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:

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Portal’s Mac app helps users focus with immersive backgrounds and audio »

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.

View the full story on TechCrunch.

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How to Use Custom File Names for Screenshots on an iPhone »

Yash Wate for MakeUseOf:

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.

View the full story on MakeUseOf.