Category: News

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News

Apple Releases “Hold That Thought” Shortcut for Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), which Apple highlighted in their press release showcasing accessibility features coming in the next year – plus a new Accessibility shortcut called Hold That Thought:

New features include Accessibility Nutrition Labels on the App Store, Magnifier for Mac, Braille Access, and Accessibility Reader; plus innovative updates to Live Listen, visionOS, Personal Voice, and more.

Near the end of the release, Apple explains their new shortcut, plus the addition of the previous Accessibility Shortcut to Vision Pro:

The Shortcuts app adds Hold That Thought, a shortcut that prompts users to capture and recall information in a note so interruptions don’t derail their flow. The Accessibility Assistant shortcut has been added to Shortcuts on Apple Vision Pro to help recommend accessibility features based on user preferences.

Here’s how Apple describes the shortcut:

Interruptions can cause you to forget tasks and affect productivity, especially for neurodivergent individuals.

When you run this shortcut, you have two options: Capture and Recall.

Run the shortcut and select Capture to capture a screenshot of what you’re doing, any calendar events in the next hour, current open webpage in Safari (Mac only), and Clipboard contents. You’ll then be prompted to write short notes about what you are doing and what you are about to do. Run the shortcut again and select Recall to find the last created note with all the captured information. All notes will be saved with the title “Hold that thought” and the date and time saved.

Run this shortcut using Siri, or add it to the Control Center, Action button or to the Home Screen for quick access.

I love this idea, and the core concept matches the inspiration for my currently-secret app idea that I teased at the end of my Deep Dish Swift talk.

I do have a few suggestions for improvements to the shortcut, however:

  • Remove the errant space in the Choose From Menu prompt between “Capture” and “or” – it says “Capture or recall last stopping point?”
  • For both “📸 Capture” and “🔁 Recall” options Choose From Menu, Apple should add Synonyms for “Capture” and “Recall” – the emoji can cause issues when dictating to Siri (in general, I avoid emoji in Menus for this reason).
  • Utilize the “Find Tabs” action for iOS instead of simple not adding any functionality for Safari on mobile; Apple’s use of only “Get Current Safari Tab” for Mac reminds me that they still have not added the set of Safari iOS actions added back in 2022 to macOS, and their absence in this shortcut furthers my belief that these highly-sought actions are deprioritized simply because the team doesn’t use iOS as often and this Mac action is “good enough”.
  • The second “Recall” option just opens the note, but I’d rather see that last item I saved – Apple should have gone further to isolate the recent item and display the recalled information, not just open it again. I tried to Recall from my Apple Watch and the shortcut simply failed.
  • The flow of an alert, a 5-second countdown before a screenshot, and two prompts might be too long for most neurodivergent people to capture information effectively while in the process of being interrupted.

To improve the shortcut as it is today, I’d simply remove the Show Alert and Wait actions, and assign this new shortcut to the Action button – that way you can immediately take a screenshot, then answer the prompts, and move on.

Going further, I’d love to see a new version of this next year once Apple Intelligence ships in full, which utilizes “Get On-Screen Content” and accesses all the data available from apps for Personal Context.

Get “Hold That Thought” for Shortcuts, view the announcement from the Apple Newsroom, and check out past updates from GAAD.

Categories
News

New developer APIs hint at ‘Personal Context’ for Apple Intelligence coming in iOS 18.4

The first look at Personal Context for Apple Intelligence is here as APIs available in the iOS 18.4 developer betas allow apps to further their content for the system to understand. This sets the stage for the most significant update to Siri so far, where all your apps can provide Siri with the available views and content to work with – in a secure and private manner, too.

As first mentioned by Prathamesh Kowarkar on Mastodon, there is now a suite of APIs in beta that associate an app’s unique content, called an entity, with a specific view – this allows Siri to read what’s indexed on-screen and use it with other app’s actions when triggered by a command.

APIs like this are necessary for the coming Siri update to actually do what Apple says Apple Intelligence is capable of – now that the functionality is here, however, it’s up to developers to implement everything to make sure the experience works well.

Here are the new pages:

If these APIs are in beta now, it stands to reason they’ll leave beta after iOS 18.4 releases in full – which means Personal Context might be coming as early as iOS 18.4.

Check out the post from Kowarkar on Mastodon.

 

Categories
Apple News Food News Recipes Shortcuts

New in the Shortcuts Library: Apple News Food shortcuts

I’ve just added a new folder to the Shortcuts Library — my set of Apple News Food shortcuts for the new Food section in Apple News+, available in iOS 18.4.

Use these shortcuts to browse stories from the Food, Healthy Eating, and Kitchen Tools & Techniques sections, as well as open directly to the Recipe Catalog.:

  • Open Food in News+: Opens to the new “Food” section in Apple News+ that curates stories and recipes for you.
  • Open Recipe Catalog in News: Opens the News app to stories from the Recipe Catalog feature, new in the new Food section in Apple News+.
  • Show Kitchen Tools and Techniques: Opens the section for Kitchen Tools & Techniques in the new Food section for Apple News+ subscribers.
  • Show Healthy Eating stories: Opens the News app to stories about Healthy Eating, located in the new Food section for Apple News+ subscribers.

Check out the folder of Apple News Food shortcuts on the Shortcuts Library.

Categories
News

Messages Gets “Open Conversation” Action for Shortcuts in iOS 18.4 Beta

In the first developer beta of iOS 18.4, Apple has added a new “Open Conversation” action for the Messages app (as first spotted in r/iOSbeta). This allows Shortcuts users to design custom shortcuts and Siri commands to open specific conversations in the Messages app, including group chats.

Found in the App list under Messages, “Open Conversation” contains a single option to choose which Conversation to open. When selected, you’ll be presented with a chronological list of all conversations from the Messages app, from your most recent text alert to your first conversation. Once selected, the Conversation title fills out the field, and, when run, the shortcut will open to that conversation in Messages – quite straightforward.

Currently, there are no additional actions like “Find Conversations,” “Mute Conversation,” “Trash Conversation,” “Rename Conversation,” or “Start Conversation,” which could be useful for filtering the list based on different parameters, managing or removing yourself from busy conversations, and updating group chats with new titles – all actions I hope Apple considers adding in the future.

I’d also like to see the Conversation action accept Contacts as input, so actions like Select Contact or Find Contacts could be used to find the correct people for a conversation, then their contacts data could populate the fields and have Messages open to the correct conversation (or disambiguate if there’s more than one).

Another addition I’d like to see is a toggle for “Open to Detail View” (or something similar) that brings up the extra contact information that you can see within a Messages conversation – having quick access to the locations, photos, and links from a conversation would be excellent and not require fundamental changes to the action.

Further, I hope Apple adopts App Shortcuts support for the Messages conversations, like they’ve done for FaceTime – it’d be great to see your three most-recent conversations in Spotlight when searching for Messages, as well as quick links to conversations like Group Chats across search. Populating the Open Conversation action with app shortcuts to each conversation would also make the Shortcuts experience quicker to set up, as users would see their most-recent conversations already available to select as well.

I’ve set up a handful of demo shortcuts for folks to download, including one that simply prompts you to choose which conversation to open, a menu to open to your pinned conversations, a quick-access tool for your partner and your main group chat, and then containers for any siblings, parents, or family conversations – these work great from the Shortcuts widget, or as Siri commands.

Get the folder of Conversations shortcuts in my Shortcuts Library, and check out the new Open Conversation in Shortcuts once iOS 18.4 releases to the public.

Categories
Developer News

Preparing Your App for Apple Intelligence: My Conference Talk from NSSpain 2024

For anyone who is interested in Apple Intelligence and learning about the App Intents APIs that power it, but don’t know where to start, my conference talk from last year covers everything you’ll need to know to get up to speed.

“Preparing Your App for Apple Intelligence,” delivered at at NSSpain 2024, covers everything to know prior to the launch of Apple Intelligence, including a brief history of Workflow, how we got from Shortcuts to App Intents, and a look forward at Apple Intelligence. Here’s the video on Vimeo, among all the 2024 talks:

My thanks to the folks at NSSpain for letting me open the conference with my first talk ever. I admittedly went slightly long, but only because I packed the presentation with loads of information – and a bit of nerves 😅. Check out this set of photos from my talk:

The rest of the conference was a delight, including a wide array of great speakers and a fancy winery dinner, all set in Logroño, Spain during the town’s annual wine festival week – surely an event to remember.

If you’re a developer who’s interested in working with me to add Apple Intelligence support and App Intents to your app, contact me directly.

Watch the whole video on Vimeo, browse the set of NSSpain 2024 talks, and check out the NSSpain website.

Categories
News

What’s New in Shortcuts in iOS and iPadOS 18.2, macOS 15.2, watchOS 11.2, and visionOS 2.2 »

From Apple Support:

New actions

  • Fitness
    “Open Award,” “Open Session History,” “Open Fitness Settings,” “Open Trophy Case,” “Search in Fitness+,” “Open Trends,” and “Open View” are now available on iOS and iPadOS
  • Freeform
    “Rename Board” and “Update Board” are now available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS
  • Stocks
    “New Watchlist,” “Open Watchlist,” and “Delete Watchlists” are now available on all platforms
  • More
    “Get Current App” is now available on all platforms

Updated actions

For those building custom shortcuts, some actions have been updated:

  • Home
    “Toggle Accessory or Scene” support has been expanded to macOS
  • Notes
    “Show Notes Folder” support has been expanded to macOS
  • News
    “Show Topic” support has been expanded to macOS
  • Weather
    “Show Weather” support has been expanded to macOS

Good to see so many actions come to Mac – I’m also looking forward to using the Fitness actions. Plus, Get Current App is great for the Action button.

View the original.

Categories
News Shortcuts

What’s new in Shortcuts for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, macOS 15.1, watchOS 11.1 and visionOS 2.1 »

From Apple Support:

This update includes enhancements to the Shortcuts app across all platforms, including many updated or new actions and an expanded set of App Shortcuts available in the shortcut editor.

New actions

App Store

  • “Open Page” is now available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

Control Center

  • “Show Control Center” shows and hides Control Center on iOS and iPadOS, which can be triggered from Action button, Apple Pencil Squeeze, Back Tap, Home Screen, Widgets, and more

Finder

  • “Get Info” is now available on macOS

Health

  • “Open Data Type”, “Search in Health”, and “Open View” are now available on iOS and iPadOS
  • “Open Sleep Schedule” is now available on iOS

Messages

  • “Check In” starts a new Check In session in Messages on iOS, and watchOS

Shortcuts

  • “Move Shortcut” and “Rename Shortcut” are now available on all platforms

Spotlight

  • “Search” initiates a Spotlight search on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

Text

  • “Trim Whitespace” removes whitespace characters from text on all platforms

Tips

  • “Open Collection” is now available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

More

  • “Convert to USDZ” is now available on macOS

View the original.

Categories
Links News

Apple Intelligence will support German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Vietnamese in 2025 »

From TechCrunch

Additions to Apple Intelligence include English (India), English (Singapore), German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and “others” yet to be announced.

The feature will launch in American English, when it arrives as part of the iOS 18.1 update. The company previously announced that localized English support for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. will arrive later in 2024, with support for Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish coming in 2025.

For anyone counting, that’s 16 other countries besides the default U.S. English version.

View the original.

Categories
Links News

There Are 261 New Features Available in iOS 18

On the iOS 18 page on their website, Apple has linked to a document titled “New features available in iOS 18.” This document provides an in-depth look at all the categories of new features in iOS 18, grouped by “Apple Intelligence,” “Key Features,” and “Even More.”

When I come across detailed guides like this, I like to import all of the information into Craft, then use its grouping and backlinking features to create a more-digestible version with a complete table of contents – something I’ve done for the Shortcuts developer sessions and the latest WWDC keynote, for example.

With this iOS 18 guide, I’ve imported and grouped all the new features into a single doc in Craft for my own personal use, which I’ve also made available for members of my website to browse and peruse.

However, I wanted to share the full outline of iOS 18 features here as a public reference – plus you can still find all the details for each feature in Apple’s PDF.

Here’s that full list:

What’s new in iOS 18

Apple Intelligence

  1. Writing Tools
    1. Rewrite
    2. Style
    3. Proofread
    4. Summarize
    5. Describe
    6. Compose
  2. Image Playground
    1. Image Playground app
    2. Create Images with Concepts
    3. Create Images with People You Know
    4. Create Images with Characters
    5. Create Images with Photos
    6. Create Images with Text
    7. Suggested Concepts
    8. Quick Previews
    9. Preview history
    10. Image Playground library
    11. Animation style
    12. Illustration style
    13. Sketch style
    14. Messages experience
    15. Deep integrations
  3. Siri
    1. Personal context understanding
    2. In-app actions
    3. Onscreen awareness
    4. More resilient request handling
    5. Maintains conversational context
    6. Product knowledge
    7. Glowing edge light
    8. Type to Siri
    9. Predictive text in Siri keyboard
    10. Suggestions in Siri keyboard
    11. More natural voice
    12. More visually rich responses
    13. ChatGPT integration
  4. Focus
    1. Reduce interruptions
    2. Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing
  5. Genmoji
    1. Genmoji
  6. Mail
    1. Mail Priority messages
    2. Preview summaries
    3. Thread summaries
    4. Smart Reply
  7. Messages
    1. Smart Reply
    2. Summaries
  8. Notes
    1. Transcription summaries
    2. Image Wand
  9. Notifications
    1. Priority notifications
    2. Notification summaries
    3. Announce Notifications support
  10. Phone
    1. Call summaries
  11. Photos
    1. Natural language photo and video search
    2. Create your own Memories
    3. Clean Up tool

Key Features

  1. Customization
    1. More flexible placement
    2. Unique page layouts
    3. Dark icons
    4. Tinted icons
    5. Larger icons
  2. Control Center
    1. Redesigned Control Center
    2. Groups of controls
    3. Controls gallery
    4. Controls on your Lock Screen
    5. Controls with the Action button
  3. Photos
    1. Biggest-ever design update
    2. Collections
    3. Recent Days
    4. Groups in People & Pets
    5. Trips
    6. Wallpaper suggestions
    7. Collection view options
    8. Pinned Collections
    9. Hide screenshots from your library
    10. Months and Years highlights
    11. Expanded content types in Utilities
    12. Customize the Photos app
    13. Clean Up tool*
    14. Edit albums in folders
    15. Album attribution
    16. Edit in light or dark mode
    17. Smart copy and paste edits
    18. Video speed control
    19. Creative stories
    20. Smart suggestions
  4. Messages
    1. Text effects
    2. Text formatting
    3. Messages via satellite
    4. iMessage over satellite
    5. SMS over satellite
    6. Satellite connection in Dynamic Island
    7. Emoji and sticker Tapbacks
    8. Send Later
    9. RCS (Rich Communication Services)
    10. Low Quality Image Mode improvements
    11. High-quality Images
  5. Mail
    1. Transactions category
    2. Updates category
    3. Promotions category
    4. Time sensitive
    5. Grouped by sender
    6. Quick action
    7. Recategorization
  6. Safari
    1. Highlights
    2. Location highlights
    3. Summary highlights
    4. Music highlights
    5. Movie and TV show highlights
    6. Person highlights
    7. Redesigned Reader
    8. Distraction Control
  7. Passwords
    1. Passwords app
    2. Passwords and passkeys
    3. Sign in with Apple
    4. Wi-Fi passwords
    5. Verifications codes
    6. Sorting
    7. Syncing
    8. End-to-end encryption
    9. Windows support
  8. Maps
    1. Hiking and walking
    2. Hikes
    3. Turn-by-turn navigation
    4. Create and save walking and hiking routes
    5. Topographic maps
    6. Discover and save places
  9. Gaming
    1. Game Mode
  10. Wallet
    1. Event tickets
    2. Pay with installments
    3. Pay with Rewards
    4. Apple Pay on Chrome and Windows PC
    5. Tap to Cash
    6. Tap to provision
  11. AirPods
    1. Siri Interactions
    2. Voice Isolation
    3. Personalized Spatial Audio for gaming
    4. Reduced gaming audio latency
    5. In-game voice quality
  12. Notes
    1. Audio recording
    2. Live transcription
    3. Phone call transcription
    4. Math in Notes
    5. Access Math Notes from Calculator
    6. Collapsible sections
    7. Highlighting
    8. PDF inline search
  13. Journal
    1. State of Mind integration
    2. Log mindful minutes
    3. Insights view
    4. Streaks
    5. Calendar
    6. Stats
    7. Search and sort
    8. Export and print
    9. Widgets
    10. Quick Actions
    11. Audio transcription
    12. More formatting options
    13. Shortcuts
  14. Apple TV
    1. InSight
    2. Enhance dialogue
    3. More dynamic subtitles
  15. Home
    1. Hands-free unlock with home keys
    2. Guest access
    3. Pair Matter accessories without a hub
    4. Control robot vacuum cleaners in the Home app
    5. Electricity usage and rates
  16. Privacy & Security
    1. Improved Contacts preferences
    2. Redesigned Privacy & Security settings
    3. Accessory Setup Kit
    4. Blocking sensitive content for children

Even More

  1. Accessibility
    1. Eye Tracking
    2. Music Haptics
    3. Vocal Shortcuts
    4. Vehicle motion cues
  2. AirPlay
    1. Spatial Audio
  3. Apple Account
    1. Share Sign in with Apple credentials
  4. Calculator
    1. Math Notes
    2. Typed math
    3. Variables
    4. Graphing
    5. Adjust numbers
    6. Works with Notes
    7. Math Results
    8. History
    9. Editable expressions
    10. Portrait scientific calculator
    11. Unit conversions
  5. Calendar
    1. View reminders in Calendar
    2. Edit reminders in Calendar
    3. Create reminders in Calendar
    4. Updated Month view
    5. Refreshed look
  6. Camera
    1. 5-second timer
    2. Continue playing music when taking a photo
    3. Adjust flash settings via touch and hold
    4. Next-gen Portraits enhancements
  7. CarPlay
    1. Spatial Audio
    2. Accessibility
  8. Continuity
    1. Continuity Camera with Apple TV 4K
  9. Family Sharing
    1. Family Sharing invitations
    2. Recommended for your family
  10. Files
    1. Desktop and documents in the Cloud setup
    2. Keep downloaded
    3. Expanded external drive file formats
    4. Erasing an external drive
  11. Fitness+
    1. For You in Summary
    2. For You
    3. Explore
    4. Library
    5. Search
    6. Awards
  12. Freeform
    1. Scenes
    2. Send a copy
    3. Snap to Grid
    4. Handwriting recognition
    5. Improved diagramming
    6. Math Results
  13. iCloud
    1. Settings redesign
  14. iCloud Mail
    1. iCloud Mail cleanup
    2. Manage old email
    3. Unsubscribe and delete
  15. Keyboard
    1. Keyboard Unified picker
    2. Inline stickers and Memoji
    3. Searchable stickers
    4. Multilingual keyboard
    5. Language detection
  16. Locked and Hidden Apps
    1. Locked apps
    2. Hidden apps
    3. Hidden apps folder
    4. Seamless authentication
  17. Move to iOS
    1. Faster migration
    2. Cabled migration
    3. Improved Wi-Fi migration
    4. Tips during migration
    5. Dual SIM labels
    6. Voice memo migration
  18. Music
    1. SharePlay on more devices
  19. Phone
    1. Call recordings
    2. Call transcripts
    3. Call history search
    4. Keypad search
    5. Live caller ID lookup
    6. Live Voicemail
    7. Dual SIM in Control Center
    8. Automatic Mic Mode
  20. Podcasts
    1. Chapter scrubbing
    2. Better playback control
    3. Share from transcripts
    4. Search suggestions as you type
  21. Reminders
    1. Calendar integration
    2. Recently deleted list
    3. Subtasks in Smart Lists
    4. Multi-language grocery lists
  22. SharePlay
    1. Ask to share
    2. Draw to highlight
    3. Remote control
    4. iPhone to iPhone, iPad to iPad
    5. Privacy friendly
    6. SharePlay on more devices
  23. Tips
    1. Tips sharing
  24. Weather
    1. Easier-to-find Feels Like temperature
    2. Home and work locations
    3. Prominent wind gusts and direction

261 Features Coming to iOS 18

Plus, for fun, I removed all the categories and groups to create a single-file list of all the features – assuming I didn’t miss anything, there’s 261 features coming to iOS 18 (according to the list Apple provided):

  1. Rewrite
  2. Style
  3. Proofread
  4. Summarize
  5. Describe
  6. Compose
  7. Image Playground app
  8. Create Images with Concepts
  9. Create Images with People You Know
  10. Create Images with Characters
  11. Create Images with Photos
  12. Create Images with Text
  13. Suggested Concepts
  14. Quick Previews
  15. Preview history
  16. Image Playground library
  17. Animation style
  18. Illustration style
  19. Sketch style
  20. Messages experience
  21. Deep integrations
  22. Personal context understanding
  23. In-app actions
  24. Onscreen awareness
  25. More resilient request handling
  26. Maintains conversational context
  27. Product knowledge
  28. Glowing edge light
  29. Type to Siri
  30. Predictive text in Siri keyboard
  31. Suggestions in Siri keyboard
  32. More natural voice
  33. More visually rich responses
  34. ChatGPT integration
  35. Reduce interruptions
  36. Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing
  37. Genmoji
  38. Mail Priority messages
  39. Preview summaries
  40. Thread summaries
  41. Smart Reply
  42. Smart Reply
  43. Summaries
  44. Transcription summaries
  45. Image Wand
  46. Priority notifications
  47. Notification summaries
  48. Announce Notifications support
  49. Call summaries
  50. Natural language photo and video search
  51. Create your own Memories
  52. Clean Up tool
  53. More flexible placement
  54. Unique page layouts
  55. Dark icons
  56. Tinted icons
  57. Larger icons
  58. Redesigned Control Center
  59. Groups of controls
  60. Controls gallery
  61. Controls on your Lock Screen
  62. Controls with the Action button
  63. Biggest-ever design update
  64. Collections
  65. Recent Days
  66. Groups in People & Pets
  67. Trips
  68. Wallpaper suggestions
  69. Collection view options
  70. Pinned Collections
  71. Hide screenshots from your library
  72. Months and Years highlights
  73. Expanded content types in Utilities
  74. Customize the Photos app
  75. Clean Up tool
  76. Edit albums in folders
  77. Album attribution
  78. Edit in light or dark mode
  79. Smart copy and paste edits
  80. Video speed control
  81. Creative stories
  82. Smart suggestions
  83. Text effects
  84. Text formatting
  85. Messages via satellite
  86. iMessage over satellite
  87. SMS over satellite
  88. Satellite connection in Dynamic Island
  89. Emoji and sticker Tapbacks
  90. Send Later
  91. RCS (Rich Communication Services)
  92. Low Quality Image Mode improvements
  93. High-quality Images
  94. Transactions category
  95. Updates category
  96. Promotions category
  97. Time sensitive
  98. Grouped by sender
  99. Quick action
  100. Recategorization
  101. Highlights
  102. Location highlights
  103. Summary highlights
  104. Music highlights
  105. Movie and TV show highlights
  106. Person highlights
  107. Redesigned Reader
  108. Distraction Control
  109. Passwords app
  110. Passwords and passkeys
  111. Sign in with Apple
  112. Wi-Fi passwords
  113. Verifications codes
  114. Sorting
  115. Syncing
  116. End-to-end encryption
  117. Windows support
  118. Hiking and walking
  119. Hikes
  120. Turn-by-turn navigation
  121. Create and save walking and hiking routes
  122. Topographic maps
  123. Discover and save places
  124. Game Mode
  125. Event tickets
  126. Pay with installments
  127. Pay with Rewards
  128. Apple Pay on Chrome and Windows PC
  129. Tap to Cash
  130. Tap to provision
  131. Siri Interactions
  132. Voice Isolation
  133. Personalized Spatial Audio for gaming
  134. Reduced gaming audio latency
  135. In-game voice quality
  136. Audio recording
  137. Live transcription
  138. Phone call transcription
  139. Math in Notes
  140. Access Math Notes from Calculator
  141. Collapsible sections
  142. Highlighting
  143. PDF inline search
  144. State of Mind integration
  145. Log mindful minutes
  146. Insights view
  147. Streaks
  148. Calendar
  149. Stats
  150. Search and sort
  151. Export and print
  152. Widgets
  153. Quick Actions
  154. Audio transcription
  155. More formatting options
  156. Shortcuts
  157. InSight
  158. Enhance dialogue
  159. More dynamic subtitles
  160. Hands-free unlock with home keys
  161. Guest access
  162. Pair Matter accessories without a hub
  163. Control robot vacuum cleaners in the Home app
  164. Electricity usage and rates
  165. Improved Contacts preferences
  166. Redesigned Privacy & Security settings
  167. Accessory Setup Kit
  168. Blocking sensitive content for children
  169. Eye Tracking
  170. Music Haptics
  171. Vocal Shortcuts
  172. Vehicle motion cues
  173. Spatial Audio
  174. Share Sign in with Apple credentials
  175. Math Notes
  176. Typed math
  177. Variables
  178. Graphing
  179. Adjust numbers
  180. Works with Notes
  181. Math Results
  182. History
  183. Editable expressions
  184. Portrait scientific calculator
  185. Unit conversions
  186. View reminders in Calendar
  187. Edit reminders in Calendar
  188. Create reminders in Calendar
  189. Updated Month view
  190. Refreshed look
  191. 5-second timer
  192. Continue playing music when taking a photo
  193. Adjust flash settings via touch and hold
  194. Next-gen Portraits enhancements
  195. Spatial Audio
  196. Accessibility
  197. Continuity Camera with Apple TV 4K
  198. Family Sharing invitations
  199. Recommended for your family
  200. Desktop and documents in the Cloud setup
  201. Keep downloaded
  202. Expanded external drive file formats
  203. Erasing an external drive
  204. For You in Summary
  205. For You
  206. Explore
  207. Library
  208. Search
  209. Awards
  210. Scenes
  211. Send a copy
  212. Snap to Grid
  213. Handwriting recognition
  214. Improved diagramming
  215. Math Results
  216. Settings redesign
  217. iCloud Mail cleanup
  218. Manage old email
  219. Unsubscribe and delete
  220. Keyboard Unified picker
  221. Inline stickers and Memoji
  222. Searchable stickers
  223. Multilingual keyboard
  224. Language detection
  225. Locked apps
  226. Hidden apps
  227. Hidden apps folder
  228. Seamless authentication
  229. Faster migration
  230. Cabled migration
  231. Improved Wi-Fi migration
  232. Tips during migration
  233. Dual SIM labels
  234. Voice memo migration
  235. SharePlay on more devices
  236. Call recordings
  237. Call transcripts
  238. Call history search
  239. Keypad search
  240. Live caller ID lookup
  241. Live Voicemail
  242. Dual SIM in Control Center
  243. Automatic Mic Mode
  244. Chapter scrubbing
  245. Better playback control
  246. Share from transcripts
  247. Search suggestions as you type
  248. Calendar integration
  249. Recently deleted list
  250. Subtasks in Smart Lists
  251. Multi-language grocery lists
  252. Ask to share
  253. Draw to highlight
  254. Remote control
  255. iPhone to iPhone, iPad to iPad
  256. Privacy friendly
  257. SharePlay on more devices
  258. Tips sharing
  259. Easier-to-find Feels Like temperature
  260. Home and work locations
  261. Prominent wind gusts and direction

 

Categories
Links News

What’s new in Shortcuts for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11 and visionOS 2 »

Screenshot

From Apple Support:

New in iOS and iPadOS 18.0, macOS 15.0, watchOS 11.0, and visionOS 2.0

This update includes enhancements to the Shortcuts app across all platforms, including dozens of updated or new actions as well as hundreds of new glyphs for personalizing your shortcuts.

New actions

Accessibility

  • “Set Switch Control Switch State” can manipulate switches on iOS and visionOS
  • “Set Hover Text Enabled” can now enable or disable displaying larger versions of text on macOS

Freeform

  • “Create Board” and “Open Board” are available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

Journal

  • “Create Entry,” “Create Audio Entry,” and “Search Entries” are available on iOS and iPadOS

Magnifier

  • “Describe This,” “Detect Items,” “Start Point & Speak,” “Open Reader,” and “Start Activity” are available on iOS and iPadOS

Music

  • “Set Music Focus Filter” is available on iOS and iPadOS

Wallet

  • “Open Card” is is available on iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS

Shortcuts

  • “Create Folder” and “Create iCloud Link for Shortcut” are available on all platforms
  • “Add Shortcut to Home Screen” is available on iOS and iPadOS

Updated Actions

For those building custom shortcuts, some actions have been updated:

  • “If” now supports evaluating multiple conditions at once, combining them with Any or All
  • “If” now supports selecting date and time values inline
  • “Open Smart List” can now open any Reminders list
  • “Match Text” now indicates invalid regular expressions above the keyboard
  • “Recognize Music” support has been expanded to watchOS
  • “Listen to Page” support has been expanded to visionOS

Shortcuts editor

For those building custom shortcuts, some changes have been made to the shortcut editor:

  • Faster search, improved categorization, and other enhancements to finding actions
  • Actions can be pinned for quick access
  • Keyboard navigation support has been expanded on macOS, including ⌘F for search, navigation with the tab and arrow keys, and more
  • Over 200 new icon glyphs allow greater expressivity in your shortcut icons, including animals, sports, home devices, and more
  • Improved performance and reliability

Control Center

  • Control Center now includes a Shortcuts Control that can be configured to run any available shortcut or open apps

Learn about the features in Shortcuts for iOS and iPadOS 17, macOS 14, watchOS 10 and visionOS 1.

View the original.

Categories
News

Apple Has (Finally) Made Shortcuts’ Action Editor Easier To Browse

In iOS 18.1 developer beta 2, Apple has updated how it organizes actions in the Shortcuts app to create a better experience for users, including a new ordering inside action and categories, as well as two new categories.

This a long overdue change to the Action Editor, which should make it easier for new users to learn how to use Shortcuts – categories are more distinct, important actions are easier to find, and there’s a logical sort order inside groups to help you progressively understand how to use them.

New Order

Throughout all categories and subcategories in the Shortcuts app, Apple has updated the order of actions from alphabetical to a custom order. Instead of actions being ordered by what letter happened to appear at the beginning of what verb happened to be chosen for that action, now the actions inside Shortcuts have a logical order that emphasizes important functions first and group similar functions near each other.

A great example of this new group ordering is in the Media category, which consists of Music, Podcasts, and Photos actions – previously there was were multiple small categories at the beginning (shown above), then photos, then music, then back to photos, then more music in the form of Playlists, and finally podcasts.

Now, all the entire category has been streamlined, music and podcast actions are near each other, and the photos actions are grouped logically as well.

Another great example of the new logical ordering of actions inside categories is the Scripting category, where the most commonly-used actions like Show Result and Ask for Input have been entirely moved up to the top, rather than buried in their respective “No-Ops” and “Notification” categories that deemphasized their critical use while Scripting.

Now, when looking through the Scripting group, it should be easier to find the actions you’re most likely to use near the top, and the more esoteric tools are lower down where advanced users can find them – or just Search for them.

New Groups

Going further, the Scripting category is also now dedicated more directly towards true scripting functions, and in the process Apple has moved a subset of actions out and into new groups for Controls and Device functions.

Over time, as Apple added more and more functionality to the Scripting category, it became bloated with lots of system functions that don’t necessarily relate to the act of scripting, per se.

Now, with the introduction of Controls as function in Control Center, Apple has broken out all Controls-related actions into a new Controls group. Similarly, all the actions that related to the specific Device details have been moved into the new Device category.

These new groups are a great addition, emphasizing the functionality found in Controls and Device categories that might’ve otherwise been lost on users who don’t do much Scripting, while also making the Scripting category more clear on its own.

I hope Apple continues to expand these groups and adds more categories. Apple could open these categories to third-party developers, letting developers add actions to these categories as well as creating more top-level groupings – this would further help users find what actions are available to utilize without going through app-by-app to check.

Welcome Improvements

These updated action grouping, ordering, and new categories are a very welcome addition to the Action Editor experience in Shortcuts – this automation platform has so much potential and little user experience tweaks like this can go a long way towards introducing newer users to such a complicated experience.

And even as a seasoned expert, I’ve wanted these for a long time – hence why I directly asked for these changes via Apple’s Feedback tool, which I’m extremely happy to see implemented.

Check out the developer betas to get early access to these changes, or you can look forward to these updates when iOS 18.1 releases this fall.

Here’s the full breakdown of the new categorization (note that some actions are not contained in a subcategory):

Actions

Scripting

  • Comment
  • Show Result
  • Show Alert
  • Ask for Input
  • Count

Control Flow

  • Choose from Menu
  • If
  • Repeat
  • Repeat with Each
  • Wait

Variables

  • Set Variable
  • Get Variable
  • Add to Variable

Lists

  • List
  • Choose from List
  • Get Item from List

Dictionaries

  • Dictionary
  • Get Dictionary Value
  • Set Dictionary Value
  • Get Dictionary from Input

Numbers

  • Number
  • Random Number
  • Round Number
  • Format Number
  • Get Numbers from Input

Math

  • Calculate
  • Calculate Expression
  • Calculate Statistics

Measurement

  • Measurement
  • Convert Measurement

Dates

  • Date
  • Format Date
  • Adjust Date
  • Get Time Between Dates
  • Get Dates from Input
  • Convert Time Zone

Text

  • Text
  • Get Text from Input
  • Show Definition
  • Get Name of Emoji

Text Editing

  • Change
  • Combine Text
  • Split Text
  • Replace Text
  • Match Text
  • Get Group from Matched Text
  • Correct Spelling

Audio

  • Dictate Text
  • Transcribe Audio
  • Speak Text
  • Make Spoken Audio from Text

Translation

  • Detect Language
  • Translate Text

Items

  • Get Name
  • Get Type
  • Set Name
  • Quick Look
  • View Content Graph

Shortcuts

  • Get My Shortcuts
  • Run Shortcut

Other

  • Get What’s On Screen
  • Base64 Encode
  • Generate Hash
  • URL Encode
  • Format File Size
  • Stop and Output
  • Stop This Shortcut
  • Wait to Return
  • Run Script over SSH
  • Open X-Callback URL
  • Nothing

Controls

  • Set Silent Mode
  • Set Focus
  • Set Volume
  • Set Flashlight
  • Set Low Power Mode
  • Shut Down

Connectivity

  • Set Airplane Mode
  • Set Wi-Fi
  • Set Bluetooth
  • Set Cellular Data
  • Set Personal Hotspot
  • Set VPN
  • Set AirDrop Receiving

Display

  • Set Appearance
  • Set Orientation Lock
  • Set Brightness
  • Set True Tone
  • Set Night Shift
  • Lock Screen
  • Set Stage Manager

Navigation

  • Open App
  • Go to Home Screen

Capture

  • Take Photo
  • Take Video
  • Record Audio
  • Take Screenshot

Device

  • Get Device Details
  • Get Battery Status
  • Get Orientation
  • Get Current Focus
  • Get Physical Activity

Clipboard

  • Copy to Clipboard
  • Get Clipboard

Notification

  • Show Notification
  • Play Sound

Network

  • Get Current IP Address
  • Get Network Details
  • Get Hotspot Password
  • Reset Cellular Data Statistics

Wallpaper

  • Set Wallpaper Photo
  • Get All Wallpapers
  • Switch Between Wallpapers

Location

  • Get Current Location
  • Find Places
  • Filter Locations
  • Open Directions
  • Open in Maps
  • Request Ride

Location

  • Get Details of Location
  • Location
  • Get Maps URL

Addresses

  • Street Address
  • Get Addresses from Input

Travel

  • Get Distance
  • Get Halfway Point
  • Get Travel Time

Media

Image

  • Convert Image
  • Filter Images
  • Get Details of Images
  • Get Images from Input
  • Make Image from PDF Page
  • Make Image Rich Text
  • Extract Text from Image

Image Editing

  • Markup
  • Combine Images
  • Crop Image
  • Flip Image
  • Mask Image
  • Overlay Image
  • Overlay Text
  • Resize Image
  • Rotate Image/Video
  • Remove Image Background

GIFs

  • Make GIF
  • Make Video from GIF
  • Add Frame to GIF
  • Get Frames from Image

Photos

  • Select Photos
  • Find Photos
  • Get Latest Photos
  • Get Latest Videos
  • Get Latest Screenshots
  • Get Latest Bursts
  • Get Latest Live Photos
  • Get Last Import
  • Remove from Photo Album
  • Delete Photos
  • Save to Photo Album

Video

  • Encode Media
  • Trim Media

Playback

  • Set Volume
  • Play/Pause
  • Seek
  • Skip Back
  • Skip Forward
  • Set Noise Control Mode
  • Hand Off Playback
  • Change Playback Destination

Music

  • Select Music
  • Find Music
  • Play Music
  • Add to Playing Next
  • Clear Playing Next
  • Get Current Song
  • Get Details of Music

Playing Next

  • Add to Playing Next
  • Clear Playing Next

Playlists

  • Add to Playlist
  • Create Playlist
  • Get Playlist

Podcasts

  • Find Podcasts
  • Follow Podcast
  • Play Podcast
  • Get Episodes of Podcast
  • Get Podcasts from Library
  • Get Details of Podcast
  • Get Details of Podcast Episode

Sharing

  • Share
  • Share with Apps
  • Send Message
  • Send Email

AirDrop

  • AirDrop

Clipboard

  • Copy to Clipboard
  • Get Clipboard

Photos

  • Post to Shared Album

QR Code

  • Generate QR Code
  • Scan QR or Barcode

Documents

  • Print
  • Markup

PDFs

  • Make PDF
  • Optimize File size of PDF
  • Split PDF into Pages
  • Add PDF to Books
  • Get Text from PDF

File Storage

  • File
  • Select File
  • Move File
  • Rename File
  • Save File
  • Delete Files
  • Get Link to File
  • Create Folder
  • Get Contents of Folder
  • Get File from Folder
  • Append to Text File

Archives

  • Make Archive
  • Extract Archive

Files

  • Open File
  • Get Details of Files
  • Filter Filters

Rich Text

  • Make HTML from Rich Text
  • Make Markdown from Rich Text
  • Make Rich Text from HTML
  • Make Rich Text from Markdown

Web

  • Search Web
  • Open URLs
  • Find Giphy GIFs

Safari

  • Show Web View
  • Add to Reading List

RSS

  • Get Items from RSS Feed
  • Get RSS Feeds from Page

Articles

  • Filter Articles
  • Get Details of Article
  • Get Article using Safari Reader

URLs

  • URL
  • Get URLs from Input
  • Expand URL
  • Get Component of URL

Web Requests

  • Get Contents of URL
  • Get Headers of URL

Web Pages

  • Get Contents of Web Page
  • Get Details of Safari Web Page
  • Run JavaScript on Web Page

* Save to Photo Album should be higher in this list, as it’s required for any images to be saved to Photos at all – this is often a case of confusion where people create GIFs or edit images, but don’t know to save them to Photos.

** The Playing Next category appears to be a duplicate, as the actions contained are also listed in the Music category.

Categories
News

Apple Testing Updated Native Actions in Shortcuts (Starting with Reminders)

As discovered by Scotty Jackson, there are new Reminders actions in the Shortcuts app in iOS 18 developer beta 2. The new actions are “Create Reminder” and “Open Any List,” both of which still seem to be in testing.

Create Reminder and Open Any List are both updated versions—but distinct from—their respective counterparts “Add New Reminder” and “Open Reminders List” (and “Open Smart List).

New Reminders actions

Create Reminder has more options than Add New Reminder, including new fields for List Section (within the Target List) and Subtasks. Plus, the action changes the Alert field to separate All-Day and Due Date fields, losing the “When Messaging,” “When I Leave,” and “When I Arrive” options in the process as well – it remains to be seen if these will be restored somehow. There’s also a new “Assign Reminder” field that does not current return any results in my testing.

Open Any List provides a single variable for “Any List” which lets you pick a specific List from Reminders and, when run, open it – this appears to be a replacement for the separate “Open Reminders List” action (which came first) and the “Open Smart List” action (which came later), combining the two under a more-logical single action going forward. However, this action is also oddly-implemented in both its name and the fact that it includes an “Open When Run” toggle that’s not functional and should be built-in to the action, not available as a toggle.

Neither has the Parameter Summary feature implemented, so both actions do not read like a natural sentence with a parameter inline and instead hide it below the fold – this goes against Apple’s own recommendations, so it appears that both actions are an earlier implementation and hopefully will change in future betas.

App Intents for Apple teams too

Overall, seeing updates to these Reminders actions is a good sign for the Shortcuts ecosystem, as it’s the first signal that Apple is updating their native Shortcuts actions with App Intents-based replacements in iOS 18.

Since the inception of many of these actions in Workflow when Shortcuts was a third-party app, many actions have been built on longstanding external-facing developer APIs (hence actions like “Get Upcoming Reminders”) and then later custom intents from within teams at Apple – they either stayed the same as the Workflow actions, or got piece-by-piece updates for new features each year like Tags in Reminders.

However, as is the nature of intents development, Apple also has tried not to break anything or remove features that are being used in existing shortcuts – but rather than deprecating actions over time, they either have been updated-in-place, added as separate actions (like “Open Smart List”), or simply not implemented in Shortcuts at all.

Now, it appears that we’re seeing the first evidence of an Apple team seeding new actions in betas, hopefully testing and iterating on them, and then likely replacing the Workflow- and custom intents-era actions with modern App Intents actions that can be extended with new features more easily and updated going forward.

More to come

I hope Apple eventually replaces all the native Shortcuts actions from the Workflow days with full-featured, modern App Intents actions for all of their apps, as well as adopt their own recommendation that “Everything in your app should be an App Intent.”

That’s because developers will take absolutely notice when Apple leads the way, and, furthermore, many Shortcuts users have been waiting (somewhat) patiently for about 7 years for Apple to take the promise of Workflow and run with it for their own apps in a big way.

Apple Intelligence and App Intents for third-party developers will be fantastic, but Apple’s own teams need best-in-class integrations as well – hopefully these Reminders actions are a sign of more to come.

I’ll update this post if these Reminders get updates in future releases, and check back for more action coverage after each new developer beta this summer.

Categories
News

Roundup of App Intents developer sessions from WWDC’24

If you’re a developer looking to update your App Intents implementation for iOS 18, use this page as a resource for links to all the relevant videos, sessions, documentation, and forums you might need to access from Apple.

Videos

Sessions

Apple has released 4 new sessions that focus specific on the App Intents experience:

App Intents are also relevant in these sessions:

Documentation

Once you’ve watched the sessions, here is the main App Intents documentation and the new domains page relevant for Apple Intelligence:

Within the App Intents documentation, these new pages are important to reference as well:

Forums

Apple has also put significant work into its developer forums in recent years and revamped the entire experience – here’s the tag for App Intents (among many others):

If you’re a developer or company looking for direct help with your App Intents implementation, send me an email – I’m now available for App Intents and Shortcuts consulting.

Categories
Announcements News

This Tuesday: My Shortcuts User Group Meetup at WWDC »

From yours truly:

Hello developers, creators, and Apple enthusiasts in the Bay Area – let’s gather together for an informal Shortcuts User Group meetup to talk post-WWDC in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, June 11 from 3-5 pm.

Let’s talk Shortcuts, WWDC, and all things Apple – plus, I’ll have gear from my Elgato partnership to give away to attendees – including the Prompter and Stream Deck Neo.

Gear is here, and I’m getting packed – this is going to be fun!

Tickets for the back patio are almost gone – get yours today!

View the original.

Categories
Events News

Event: Join Me at the Shortcuts User Group Meetup for WWDC’24 in San Jose

Hello developers, creators, and Apple enthusiasts in the Bay Area – let’s gather together for an informal Shortcuts User Group meetup to talk post-WWDC in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, June 11 from 3-5 pm.

Let’s talk Shortcuts, WWDC, and all things Apple – plus, I’ll have gear from my Elgato partnership to give away to attendees – including the Prompter and Stream Deck Neo.

I’ve been looking at SoFA Market in downtown San Jose as the best location – they have a sizable back patio, plenty of seating in the marketplace, and multiple restaurants to choose from. There’s also a huge parking lot located directly across the street at 300 S First St, San Jose, CA 95113 as well, so parking and food are easy.

Plus, it’s located directly next door to The California Theater, where John Gruber is hosting The Talk Show live starting at 6pm and will (likely/hopefully) be interviewing Apple executives.

I’ll be giving away the Stream Deck Neos and Prompters in-person at the event, plus can answer any questions about their other gear (as I have almost all of it for testing purposes now). I’m thankful to Elgato for being open to supporting this event and the greater Apple community – it’ll be tons of fun to give these all away.

So, if you can attend, join us to talk about Shortcuts and anything WWDC, win some Elgato gear, and get snacks or an early dinner before going to your next event. 🤓

Get virtual tickets for the meetup here – please register if you plan to attend so I can anticipate how many people will come.

P.S. If you’re not able to come you in-person, you can register interest for future events, regardless of location (anywhere in the world) – I am looking into international speaking events around App Intents for the future.

P.P.S. I’ve reached out to SoFA Market to rent their back patio officially, but unfortunately haven’t heard back yet to confirm. If I’m unable to rent it out, we can essentially go anyway without the guarantee of a private space. Otherwise, I have included Academic Coffee’s location on the venue page as an alternate backup spot – they’re only open until 4pm, however, and I’d push the time earlier an hour and show up at 2pm.

Categories
Links News

Apple iOS 18 Siri AI Update Will Let Users Control Features in Apps With Voice »

From Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is planning to overhaul its Siri virtual assistant with more advanced artificial intelligence, a move that will let users control individual app functions with their voice, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The new system will allow Siri to take command of all the features within apps for the first time, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the initiative isn’t public. That change required a revamp of Siri’s underlying software using large language models — a core technology behind generative AI — and will be one of the highlights of Apple’s renewed push into AI, they said.

Additional context from Joe Rossignol from MacRumors on Threads:

An aspect of Mark’s report that stood out to me: iOS 18’s smarter Siri features seemingly aren’t launching until an iOS 18.x update in 2025. I’m sure Apple will preview this at WWDC, and then the features will probably have a “coming in early 2025” label on Apple’s website.

View the original (via 9to5Mac).

Categories
News

Apple’s WWDC’24 starts June 10

From Apple Newsroom:

Today, Apple unveiled the lineup for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, including Keynote and Platforms State of the Union, and shared more information about what developers will learn and experience all week. The free online conference brings the global Apple developer community together to provide them with insights into the latest technologies, tools, and frameworks coming to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS. Throughout the week, developers will be able to hear from Apple engineers, designers, and other experts through more than 100 technical sessions, in-depth consultations, and live forums for guidance on building even more innovative and platform-differentiating apps and games across all Apple products.

View the original.

 

Categories
News Shortcuts

Vocal Shortcuts Will Let You Create Voice Triggers For Any Command (Without Saying Siri)

In their annual announcements for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), Apple announced a teaser for iOS 18 for Vocal Shortcuts, a new feature that lets you create custom voice commands like Accessibility features and custom shortcuts, bypassing the need for a “Siri” trigger phrase and using the vocal shortcut itself as the trigger.

Currently, Shortcuts does already allow users to run their shortcuts by speaking the custom name of the shortcut to Siri – however, it requires an activation phrase (or pressing the physical button).

Now, with Vocal Shortcuts as a feature, they can bypass the trigger entirely and use their Vocal Shortcut name as the complete trigger + action command. For example, rather than saying “Siri, turn the lights to 100%,” users could create a shortcut that sets the lights accordingly, and create a vocal shortcut to trigger anytime you say “Light Bright” – even without saying Siri first.

Here’s how Apple describes it in their announcement, alongside the Listen for Atypical Speech feature:

With Vocal Shortcuts, iPhone and iPad users can assign custom utterances that Siri can understand to launch shortcuts and complete complex tasks. Listen for Atypical Speech, another new feature, gives users an option for enhancing speech recognition for a wider range of speech. Listen for Atypical Speech uses on-device machine learning to recognize user speech patterns. Designed for users with acquired or progressive conditions that affect speech, such as cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or stroke, these features provide a new level of customization and control, building on features introduced in iOS 17 for users who are nonspeaking or at risk of losing their ability to speak.

Plus, Vocal Shortcuts can be assigned to any Accessibility feature, no shortcut required – adding in Shortcuts lets users take the feature to the next level and execute multiple actions, not just the one pre-assigned command.

In many ways, Apple has been learning from features introduced in the past to make this possible – the introduction and improvements to Sound Recognition have surely helped, as well as the recent dropping of “Hey” from “Hey Siri.”

Check out the rest of Apple’s announcements for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, including the very cool Eye Tracking and and Music Haptics coming this year.

Categories
Gear News

Apple Pencil Pro Lets You Run A Shortcut With A Squeeze

Screenshot

Apple’s newly-launched Apple Pencil Pro for the M4 iPad Pro includes a special squeeze gesture that activates a special palette or unique commands depending on your app – in a new change for Apple Pencil, “Shortcut” has been added to the list, letting M4 iPad Pro activate a shortcut from anywhere by squeezing the Pencil.

Chris Lawley, iPad expert on YouTube, shared the demo in this clip from his M4 iPad Pro review:

This update is super exciting for iPad Pro users who take advantage of Shortcuts, letting them map any command to the Apple Pencil and trigger it with a quick gesture – and more than one action can be assigned using Scripting actions like Choosing From menu or If to change the purpose depending on certain conditions.

As YouTuber Stephen Robles quipped on his podcast Primary Technology, “It’s an Action Button for iPad!” – the first time iPad users have universal access to a hardware control to trigger Shortcuts, a feature that’s been available on Apple Watch Ultra and the Pro lines for iPhone in recent years.

Assigning the squeeze gesture to a shortcut is a great update for Apple Pencil with the new Pro line and definitely gives power users a reason to upgrade – I’m looking forward to playing around with shortcuts from my Shortcuts Library and seeing what clever techniques I can come up with.

Learn about the new Apple Pencil Pro and M4 iPad Pro from Apple.

 

Categories
News

What’s new in Shortcuts for iOS and iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, watchOS 10.4 and visionOS 1.1

Updated on March 13, 2024, Apple has added release notes for Shortcuts for Shortcuts in the iOS 17.4 cycle, including new actions for the Action button on iPhone, restored actions for Apple Vision Pro users, and fixes for Shortcuts for Mac.

Here’s the full release notes:

This update includes new actions and enhancements to the Shortcuts app on macOS.

New actions

  • Get Orientation provides the current device orientation (such as portrait or landscape) on iOS and iPadOS
  • Get Activity determines your current activity (walking, running, cycling, or in a car) on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS
  • Shut Down, Copy to Clipboard, Recognize Music, and Show Definition are now available on visionOS

Shortcuts app on macOS

  • Keyboard navigation is now supported in menus when running shortcuts
  • Shortcuts can now be dragged from the library while in list view to folders in the sidebar
  • Opened windows are now restored when the app relaunches
  • Improved performance and reliability

Get Orientation and Get Activity are great options for making your Action button shortcuts more dynamic, changing their behavior if the phone is face-down, for example.

Bringing the Clipboard actions to visionOS is perhaps the most important update for Apple Vision Pro users, whose Clipboard shortcuts weren’t functional in vision OS 1.0 – Shut Down, Recognize Music, and Show Definition are also welcome fixes (I actually use the Restart function of Shut Down often when running betas).

On the Mac, we got a few quality of life changes, plus performance improvements – I hope to see more actions on Mac soon, especially Safari Tabs actions that came to iOS years ago.

See the full page of What’s new in Shortcuts for iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, watchOS 10, and visionOS 1.