Category: News

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News

Shortcuts has new Automations in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17: Transaction, Display, & Stage Manager

In the iOS and iPadOS 17 betas, Apple has introduced three new Automation triggers you can use in the Shortcuts app – Transaction, Display, and Stage Manager.

Here’s how Apple’s tip text describes each:

  • Transaction (Ex. When I tap a Wallet Card or Pass)
  • Display (Ex. When My Display Connects)
  • Stage Manager (Ex. When Stage Manager Is Turned On)

Transaction automations

Screenshot of Transaction type

Transactions work with Payment, Transit, Access, or Identity passes, plus you can select which card, which category of payment, or even specific Merchants.

Screenshot of transaction input

The automation starts with an optional “Receive Transaction As Input”, allowing you to extract details about the transaction, including the card or pass, merchant, and amount – this is an incredibly powerful trigger when combined with things like expense tracking, budgeting, or travel apps.

Display automations

Screenshot of Display automation

The Display automation works with the iPad Pro’s external display support, allowing actions to be kicked off when you plug in or disconnect a monitor cable.

Screenshot of Display input

The automation starts with an optional “Receive Display As Input” that allows you to extract the manufacturing Name of the device and adjust your flow accordingly — I have both Dell and LG monitors in separate rooms in my house, so I could use an If action to change my shortcut behavior depending on which room I’m in.

Stage Manager automations

Finally, the Stage Manager automation works with the system feature being toggled on or off, either from Settings, the Control Center widget, or the Shortcuts actions themselves that can Toggle Stage Manager in any shortcut.

Screenshot of Stage Manager automation

I haven’t personally implemented this automation for my own setup yet, but I’m consider simply using Open App multiple times to “set the stage” each time I activate it with my most common apps – but I’ll have to test more during the beta season.

Automate away

Overall, these three new automations are highly welcome. The Transaction automation will surely get the most use and can apply to almost every iPhone user, and the iPad automations for Displays and Stage Manager are great additions for iPad productivity – there’s much value to be captured with all three of these.

Plus, each automation can Run Immediately (instead of requiring you to Run After Confirmation), meaning they’re true background automations – very nice.

I also think the presence of Display and Stage Manager are either a hint or justification for Automations in Shortcuts for Mac – I hope Mac users get the opportunity to automate their devices with these triggers in the future.

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News

How To Watch Messi’s First MLS Match on Apple TV+ (and All Apple Sports) Using Shortcuts

All-time superstar footballer Lionel Messi is making his debut for Inter Miami as part of Major League Soccer tonight, marking a historic moment for the sport in America and for fans worldwide — plus, it’s a big deal for Apple, having bought streaming rights for the next 10 years.

For anyone who wants to watch the game, Apple has a dedicated page for the match – which you’ll need a subscription to MLS Season Pass to watch.

In the future, for matches where you won’t always have a dedicated URL ready, you can tune into MLS Season Pass using my shortcut that deep links to the in-app page. Or, for all the other leagues, you can use my Open Apple TV Sports shortcut – both of these work great on iPad in particular.

Plus, if you’re into Sports News, I’ve got a shortcut for that as well.

While I’m a Timbers fan myself having grown up in Portland, Oregon (🙂), it’s undoubtedly exciting to see such talent come to the United States – it’ll be huge for the sport after years of slow-but-steady growth here at home.

Watch the game on Apple TV and check out my folder of TV app shortcuts.

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News

Apple Tests ‘Apple GPT,’ Develops Generative AI Tools to Catch OpenAI »

From Mark Gurman at Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is quietly working on artificial intelligence tools that could challenge those of OpenAI Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and others, but the company has yet to devise a clear strategy for releasing the technology to consumers.

The iPhone maker has built its own framework to create large language models — the AI-based systems at the heart of new offerings like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard — according to people with knowledge of the efforts. With that foundation, known as “Ajax,” Apple also has created a chatbot service that some engineers call “Apple GPT.”

I hope Apple takes advantage of Shortcuts and the App Intents framework to make Siri actually do things for you, not just tell you information. If Ajax doesn’t utilize Shortcuts, they’re missing out on the biggest competitive advantage they already have built out.

Read the full article on Bloombergor in Apple News.

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News

AirPods Can Authenticate You For Siri Requests Thanks To This Accessibility Advocate »

From @ColinHughesUK:

Great for accessibility and I think will be popular with everyone. Lots of thanks to Apple for listening, and thanks for highlighting @zollotech https://t.co/Ake2MHsNbm

After mentioning that Siri’s “You need to unlock your iPhone first” was a big problem for quadriplegics like himself, Colin Hughes is now celebrating Apple’s update to Siri that lets AirPods act as authentication – when you’re wearing them, Siri requests will work without requiring you to unlock your device.

In a story from 9to5Mac, Colin is quoted about how this works for him:

There’s a new Siri authentication system on AirPods where if your device is unlocked while wearing your AirPods, it will be considered authenticated as long as they are in range (or until you change the output audio device on the system).

So basically when my carer puts my AirPods in my ears, then as long as my iPhone is unlocked when she does so, even if it locks afterwards I can still access my messages, calendar events and more.

View the original tweet, read the story from 9to5Mac, and check the original in-depth story on Colin’s experience with Accessibility and Apple products also from 9to5Mac.

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News

You Can Schedule Recurring Apple Cash Payments In iOS 17 »

@caro_milanesi on Threads:

With iOS17 you can now set up recurrent AppleCash payments like your kid’s allowance – no more forgetting to pay and being charged a penalty by the kid 😂

Carolina Milanesi, Founder and Principal Analyst of The Heart of Tech and fellow podcaster, shared this great discovery on Threads – you can set up recurring payments with your Apple Cash account in the Wallet app.

Once you select your contact to send or request money, there’s a “Recurring Payment” option that lets you pick a start date, repeating schedule, and memo for the payment.

One example where this is handy is scheduling your monthly portion of rent to a single account before sending to a landlord, as I do with my partner – or as Carolina mentioned, allowance for a kid. Very nice 👌

View the post on Threads.

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News

All The New Actions for Shortcuts in iOS 17: Multiple Timers, Mail, Passwords, & More

Today, Apple released the first public beta of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, watchOS 10, and macOS Sonoma – and with it comes a new set of actions for the Shortcuts app, many of which I first discovered from u/iBanks3’s roundup.

On iOS 17, Shortcuts has new actions for Books, Clock, Scan Documents, Fitness, Freeform, Mail, Photos, Phone, Settings, Tips, and the new Print Center app. Plus, there are also hints of new Camera actions teased in WWDC videos (as seen by u/Portatort).

Here’s the full breakdown of all the actions – those marked with an asterisk (*) work on macOS as well:

  • Books
    • Find Books
  • Clock
    • Reset Stopwatch
    • Stop Stopwatch
    • Start Stopwatch
    • Lap Stopwatch
  • Scan Documents
  • Fitness
    • Resume Mirrored Workout
    • Mark Mirrored Segment
    • End Workout
  • Freeform
    • Create new board
    • Open board
  • Mail
    • Find Message* (currently returning blank messages)
  • Photos
    • Open Collection
  • Phone
    • Get Hotspot Password
    • Reset Cellular Data Statistics
    • Toggle Cellular Plan
    • Set Default Voice/Data
    • Set Hotspot Password
    • Find Cellular Plans
  • Print Center
    • Print Documents*
  • Select Person (broken in beta 1 and 2)
  • Settings
    • Show Passwords*
  • Tips
    • Open Collection
  • Time Machine
    • Start Time Machine Backup*
  • Wallpaper
    • Switch Wallpaper

I’ve already released shortcuts for Printing, Photos Collections, Passwords, Stopwatch, and Multiple Timers (with more coming soon) – get early access to the collections during the iOS beta season as part of my membership program.

Get the public beta now, or look for these actions in your Shortcuts app once iOS 17 releases this fall.

P.S. I’ll make sure to update this post if any new actions are added in future betas.

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News

Move Over Prime Day, It’s Time For Indie Dev Sales On Great Apps

For today July 11 and tomorrow July 12, folks who buy apps on Apple’s platforms can enjoy discounts on over 100 apps made by independent app developers for Indie Dev Sales, an alternate event put on during Amazon’s Prime Day that’s organized by Signals for HomeKit developer Matt Corey.

I love the idea of Indie Dev Sales because it celebrates the hard-working independent app developers who put time, love, and care into their apps in ways that we often don’t see from apps built by larger corporations.

This event helps raise the profile of indie apps, provides helpful discounts for users, and serves as inspiration for other would-be app developers – a great way to consider spending your money on a day like today.

Here’s the full list of 113 apps (as of writing) – make sure to check out the Indie Dev Sales page to see the app links and categories, prices and discounts, plus links back to the indie developers that you can follow online:

Continue reading “Move Over Prime Day, It’s Time For Indie Dev Sales On Great Apps”
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News

What’s New in Shortcuts in iOS and iPadOS 16.5, macOS 13.4, and watchOS 9.5 »

From the Apple Support website:

This update includes enhancements to existing actions and reliability improvements to editing and running shortcuts.

Updated Actions

  • Send Message now supports images and attachments when “Show When Run” is off
  • Make Rich Text From Markdown now displays a preview instead of an HTML file on macOS
  • Ask For Input now correctly uses the “Default Date” when asking for dates
  • Calculate now correctly computes Modulus operations for decimal numbers
  • Choose From List now supports “Select All Initially” when a dictionary is passed in as input, and works from Siri on watchOS when “Select Multiple” is on
  • Open URL correctly handles URLs that contain variables, and now works from the Action Button on watchOS
  • Take Photo runs more reliably when “Show Camera Preview” is off

View the release notes on Apple.com.

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News

What’s New in Shortcuts in iOS and iPadOS 16.4, macOS 13.3, and watchOS 9.4 »

From the Apple Support:

This update includes new actions, enhancements to existing actions, and reliability improvements to the Shortcuts editor. A new option in the Shortcut editor allows selecting an app icon as an alternative to selecting a color and glyph for the shortcut.

New Actions

  • Find Books searches your library for books or PDFs matching a given title, author, genre, purchase date, or content type on iOS and macOS
  • Intercom broadcasts announcements to your home on iOS and watchOS
  • Set VPN connects, disconnects, or sets the On Demand setting for any VPN on iOS and macOS
  • Set AirDrop Receiving sets the AirDrop Receiving preference to Everyone, Contacts Only, or Nobody on iOS and macOS
  • Set Stage Manager enables or disables and changes the settings for Stage Manager on iPadOS and macOS
  • Set Announce Notifications toggles the Announce Notifications setting on iOS and watchOS
  • Set Silence Unknown Callers toggles the Silence Unknown Callers setting on iOS
  • Set Night Shift and Set True Tone toggle the display settings on iOS and macOS
  • Set Always-On Display toggles the Always-On Display on supported iOS devices
  • Find Apps finds and filters apps installed on macOS
  • Find Displays finds and filters displays on macOS
  • Shut Down, Restart, and Lock Display are now available on iOS and macOS
  • Log Out, Sleep and Put Display to Sleep are now available on macOS

Updated Actions

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

  • Move Window now allows moving a window to a display on macOS
  • Ask for Input has a new “Allow Multiple Lines” option, which can be disabled for single-line text input
  • Find Photos can now find screen recordings
  • Find Contacts now filters by birthday more accurately
  • Get Device Details can now get the OS build number
  • Get Device Details now rounds numbers, including the current battery level, volume, and brightness, to remove unnecessary decimal digits
  • Set Playback Destination now works when run from Siri
  • Play Music once again resumes currently playing music if no music is passed as input
  • Run AppleScript can now produce dictionaries as output from AppleScript records
  • Nothing now produces a variable with zero items, instead of producing no variable at all
  • Repeat can now be set to run 0 times

View the full release notes on Apple.com.

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News

Apple adds new App Intents APIs for Shortcuts in iOS 16.4 betas

Along with the first beta release of iOS 16.4, Apple has published a new beta protocol for the App Intents APIs that let developers foreground their process if user interaction is required.

Michael Gorbach, engineering manager on the App Intents, Shortcuts and Proactive Intelligence team at Apple, posted the following about the release on Mastodon:

In other exciting news, we've added some new App Intents APls in the 16.4 betas: developer.apple.com/documentat... If you have an App Intent / App Shortcut that generally runs in the background, this protocol lets you "continue" the intent in the app, foregrounding it so the user can interact there. This is great for scenarios such as asking the user to log in again, or if an order needs changing due to items being out of stock. If you're an App Intents adopter, try it out and let us know what you think!

Here’s the description of the protocol from Apple’s website:

The ForegroundContinuableIntent protocol represents intents which begin their work with the app in the background but may request to continue in the foreground.

This protocol will be in beta for the iOS 16.4 developer cycle, so app developers can begin building with this now – everyday users won’t see the effects of this in their apps until iOS 16.4 releases in full after Apple’s testing cycle.

Learn more about the ForegroundContinuableIntent protocol in the Apple Developer Documentation.

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News

iOS 16.4 beta: New Shortcuts actions for Stage Manager, Intercom, VPN, Always-On Display coming

Today, Apple posted the first developer beta for iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, macOS 13.4, and watchOS 9.4 — as is tradition, the Shortcuts community rushed to download the new betas and checked for new actions available in the app.

On Reddit, r/shortcuts moderator u/ibanks3 has posted a full list with links to screenshots of each action – here’s the list so far:

  1. Silence Unknown Callers
  2. Set Stage Manager
  3. Set True Tone
  4. Set Announce Notifications
  5. Shut Down
  6. Lock Screen
  7. Set Always on Display
  8. Intercom
  9. Set VPN
  10. Set Airdrop Receiving
  11. Set Night Shift
    Continue reading “iOS 16.4 beta: New Shortcuts actions for Stage Manager, Intercom, VPN, Always-On Display coming”
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News

What’s New in Shortcuts in iOS 16.3 and iPadOS 16.3, macOS 13.2, and watchOS 9.3 »

From the Apple Support website:

This update includes the ability to disable a shortcut from being run while the device is locked, enhancements to existing actions, and reliability improvements to editing and running shortcuts.

Updated Actions

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

  • Find Reminders can now filter reminders due in the next or previous week
  • Log Workout now supports Ask Each Time for workout duration
  • Log Health Sample now supports Ask Each Time for values on watchOS
  • Find Health Samples now supports searching for health types in the editor
  • Get Contents of URL can now use variables for the file parameter for POST or PUT requests
  • Configure Focus Filter actions now correctly set the Focus Filter on iPhone when run from watchOS
  • Show Notes Folder action now correctly appears in the editor

View the release notes on Apple.com.

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News

Apple posts Shortcuts release notes for iOS 16, 16.1, and 16.2

Following the release of iOS 16.2 on Tuesday, Apple published an update in their Support knowledge base detailing new features and issues fixed in Shortcuts in the last few releases since iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura launched.

The main headline features for iOS 16.2 are new actions for Books and changes to the Wallpaper actions:

Continue reading “Apple posts Shortcuts release notes for iOS 16, 16.1, and 16.2”
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News

15,000 ways you can use the Action button on Apple Watch Ultra

Source: Apple Newsroom

Today, the Apple Watch Ultra reviews dropped — and I’ve seen lots of coverage mention that the Action button can be set to run any shortcut.

This 9to5Mac article explains “What you can assign to the Action button, secondary actions, third-party apps” with a list of “Native options for the Action button can start/launch”:

  • Workout
  • Stopwatch
  • Waypoint
  • Backtrack
  • Dive
  • Flashlight
  • Shortcut (from Shortcuts app)
  • None

However, being able to use “Shortcut (from the Shortcuts app)” really means a lot more than that one line.

 

Back at WWDC ’22 during the keynote presentation, Apple’s Senior Director of Siri and Language Technologies, Robby Walker, said this line about the Shortcuts app (at ~0:16:30 in):

“There are over 15,000 apps that work with Siri using SiriKit and Siri Shortcuts.”

That means the Action button can be set to any shortcut  using any of the:

• 15,000+ apps with Shortcuts support,

• 300+ native actions available for custom shortcuts,

• automatically-generated App Shortcuts from your apps

I’ve shared over 800 shortcuts myself in my Shortcuts Library, documented all 300 actions that Shortcuts users can build with in my Action Directory, and have extensive coverage of App Shortcuts so far in iOS 16 — there’s so much opportunity for that dedicated Action button.

As I’ll explain in an upcoming post, the Scripting actions in Shortcuts can also be used to make your chosen Action button shortcut fully dynamic. With a bit of setup in Shortcuts, you can program one shortcut to serve multiple purposes depending on the time of day, day of week, Focus mode, or any other condition that can be detected — sign up here for my newsletter to get updated once that post goes live.

I’m super excited to test this out and get my hands on an Apple Watch Ultra — I missed the preorder, however, so I suppose I’ll be outside my local Apple Store this Friday…

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News

You can set the new Action button on Apple Watch Ultra to anything in Shortcuts

Source: Apple Newsroom

Today in Apple’s “Far Out” keynote presentation, the company released their new Apple Watch Ultra with a new dedicated Action button that can be used for physical access to key goals in apps at the appropriate time.

According to Apple engineering manager Michael Gorbach’s post on Twitter, the Action Button is powered by the new App Intents APIs that were released at WWDC and power the upcoming App Shortcuts feature as part of iOS 16 — and Shortcuts users can assigned a dedicated shortcut to the button as well:

I’m super excited to see this capability come to Apple Watch Ultra — and I hope Apple Watch gets an Action Button in the future ??‍♂️

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News Siri Shortcuts

Learn about App Shortcuts from Apple’s WWDC’22 developer sessions

At Apple’s worldwide developer conference during their State of the Union address1, Apple launched App Shortcuts and the AppIntents API, features designed for “zero setup” of shortcuts from third-party apps for use with Siri.

If you’re a developer looking to implement Shortcuts support in your app, Apple has now released all four sessions at WWDC ’22 covering what’s new in these Shortcuts APIs — here are the links:

  1. Dive into App Intents
  2. Implement App Shortcuts with App Intents
  3. Design App Shortcuts
  4. Meet Focus Filters
    Continue reading “Learn about App Shortcuts from Apple’s WWDC’22 developer sessions”
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News Siri Shortcuts

Announcing the expanded Shortcuts Library with 600 shortcuts and 150 bundle shortcuts

I am incredibly excited to announce the relaunch of my Shortcuts Library in its expanded form, including over 600 custom shortcuts!

What’s new

The Shortcuts Library is updated from last year’s release, in which I consolidated my original larger library into 50+ shortcuts that each covered large areas of what’s possible with Shortcuts.

With the new release, I’m distributing 600 single shortcuts in the main library across 100 folder groups, plus I’ve developed a method to compile each folder into 150 bundle shortcuts made out of all the single shortcuts in that folder.

Continue reading “Announcing the expanded Shortcuts Library with 600 shortcuts and 150 bundle shortcuts”
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Apps News

Apple adds Shortcuts for Mac support to Pages, Numbers, Keynote

Today, Apple released updates to their iWork suite of apps that adds actions in Shortcuts for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote on macOS, bringing powerful first-party actions that Mac users can take advantage to automate their work:

New First-Party Actions

Across all three iWork apps, there are now actions for “Open” and “Create” – plus Numbers has added “Add Row to Top or Bottom of Table” and Keynote has added “Open in Rehearsal Mode” and “Open in Show Mode.”

The Create actions all also include the templates/themes available in the iWork apps, which makes it quick to generate 40+ samples from Pages, Numbers, and Keynote each for a total of over 120+ templates.

Here’s the full list of actions:

Continue reading “Apple adds Shortcuts for Mac support to Pages, Numbers, Keynote”
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News

Apple posts Shortcuts changelog for iOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3

On Wednesday, Apple published an update in the Apple Support knowledge base detailing new features and issues fixed in Shortcuts in the latest iOS and macOS releases.

In the post, Apple lists all of the new features added to the Shortcuts app, from Automation changes, new actions, and lots of smaller details.

The second half also lists the fixes that were made for existing issues – general improvements to the editor, tweaks for broken actions or performance problems, and fixes for scripting both in the app & using Shortcuts’ command-line utility.

Apple is listening

The post itself has significance as well, as it marks Apple providing direct communication for the Shortcuts app about new features and problems.

Continue reading “Apple posts Shortcuts changelog for iOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3”
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Links News Newsletter Offsite Siri Shortcuts

Announcing my new “What’s New in Shortcuts” newsletter

As part of my new Shortcuts Catalog1, I’ve created a brand-new newsletter called What’s New in Shortcuts?.

This free newsletter is designed for anyone interested in learning more about Siri Shortcuts, covering:
* feature updates as they’re discovered,
* interesting ways to use Shortcuts related to topical stories, and
* creative new shortcuts or apps with Shortcuts actions.

In addition, What’s New in Shortcuts acts as a way to subscribe to learn about future updates to my Shortcuts Library, Action Directory, and upcoming additions to the Shortcuts Catalog.

What’s in the newsletter?

Continue reading “Announcing my new “What’s New in Shortcuts” newsletter”