On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about Amazon’s new voice-based printer integration, Wink’s recent outage (after the launch of its subscription service), and Apple’s new designed-by-Apple face covering.
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What’s New With Shortcuts – Issue #001
Welcome to the first issue of “What’s New in Shortcuts?”
Thank you for reading this newsletter – I look forward to sharing more about how to use Siri Shortcuts so everyone can learn more.
If you haven’t yet, check out the free Shortcuts Catalog with 300 shortcuts and 300 actions, plus the membership available.
With that, here’s what’s new this week:
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?
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of being invited back onto Tim Chaten’s podcast iPad Pros to discuss the updates coming to Siri Shortcuts and the Shortcuts app for iPadOS 14.
In the show, Tim asked me a detailed series of questions that covers pretty much every single aspect of what’s new in Shortcuts for iOS 14 on iPhone and iPad.1
Our conversation was so good that the show ended up being split across episode 90 and episode 91! Now that both episodes are out, you can listen to the whole chat and learn about what’s coming next.
On episode 41 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about the following:
The Google Assistant has added some new homeschooling features to its smart displays and speakers, including a school bell and random facts delivered throughout the day. Apple and UCLA are working together on a depression study. Mikah and Matthew answer and share a whole host of listener questions and feedback, respectively.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about industry news as well as headlines around Microsoft, Google, and Amazon – and Mikah’s excellent tech for tracking health data.
Plus, we’re at episode 40! Thank you very much for listening. ?
Industry news
- CES 2021 in-person show canceled, will be held online | Android Police
- Belkin has a new WeMo plug | Macrumors
- Mellow made its ‘smart’ sous vide machine dumb unless you pay a monthly fee | The Verge
Microsoft
- Microsoft is shutting down Cortana on multiple devices, including iOS and Android | The Verge
- Microsoft’s new Family Safety app offers parental controls across phones, PCs and Xbox | TechCrunch
- Google Smart Display Games Go Live | Forbes
- Google AR animals now include 23 beetles, butterflies, cicadas, and other insects | Android Police
- YouTube is doing away with community-driven captions and translations | Android Police
Amazon
- Amazon doesn’t sell Echo speakers at a loss, says Bezos — unless they’re on sale | The Verge
- Amazon bought Ring for market position, not technology, emails suggest | The Verge
Mikah’s Automated Health Tracking
Picks of the week
Links for the show:
The venerable Rene Ritchie was kind enough to invite me back onto his YouTube channel to talk Siri Shortcuts in iOS 14 and everything that’s new:
I always appreciate the opportunity to share about Shortcuts on other people’s channels, and Rene always manages to make me look good.
As I said in the video, make sure to stay tuned for some fun new updates here on my website, as well as for my own upcoming iOS 14 video.
I had the pleasure of being a guest on episode 353 of the Clockwise podcast from Relay FM, joining Brianna Wu, Jason Snell, and Dan Moren for a 30-minute round table discussion of the week’s news.
We talked about Apple silicon and what it means for gaming as well as whether we’ll be buying the first round of Macs, our beta-installation strategies, and how to use Shortcuts for public good.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
- Our experiences testing new beta health and Accessibility features,
- Apple’s focus for their sleep efforts,
- Google’s acquisition of North,
- More updates for Google Assistant in the smart home, and
- Mikah’s new security system
On episode 35 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
- NASA’s innovative open-source project related to COVID,
- New hardware releases for outdoor cameras and security systems,
- Accessibility for sound recognition and assistant reminders,
- Google’s major updates during Voice Global 2020, and
- More updates on Shortcuts & automation from Apple’s WWDC
Plus, I included a special scoop about a new action in Shortcuts I haven’t seen anywhere else – enjoy!
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about Google Assistant adding Podcasts and recipes to its Snapshot feature, the NBA’s use of the Oura smart ring to detect COVID-19 symptoms in players, and Apple’s whole host of updates for the smart home – and what’s new with Siri Shortcuts.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about grill follow-up, using Anonymous Camera for protests, tech companies responding to Black Lives Matter, the latest Sonos news, and automation during the pandemic:
Recorded June 11th, I had the privilege to be on Andru Edwards and Jon Rettinger’s podcast Geared Up.
We had a great conversation where I told them all about Siri Shortcuts, plus we covered Andru’s YouTube situation, Apple’s worldwide developer conference (WWDC) & the transition to ARM Macs, and the PS5 announcements – here are the show links:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about protests & activism, smart home news, and two great picks of the week:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about Apple’s response to coronavirus, which streaming services are free during lockdown, how to get smart home gear that’s affordable, and a Zoom wedding:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about the original Apple Watch designs, lots of Google updates, the latest in virtual hangouts, and my shortcut to change the color of my lights based on my current calendar event:
Rene Ritchie was kind enough to invite me onto his new channel along with some internet friends to talk about ways to stay productive with iPhone while stuck at home – here’s the video:
I talked about my Routine checklist shortcut, which I’m using to pull from a series of checklists I just moved into a new app Data Jar.
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about:
On this episode of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about: