Today at 10am PST, I’ll be streaming with Apple blogger/podcaster Jason Snell to walk through using the WordPress XML-RPC protocol to post directly to one’s blog.
We’ll be live on YouTube for a half hour or so, while I recreate Jason’s shortcuts he shared on his website Six Colors for my own WordPress installation.
Join us on the stream and ask questions in the chat, or catch the replay at this link:
See you there!
This Wednesday at 12pm/7pm GMT PST, I’ll be hosting a members-only livestream on YouTube to cover some of the meta work involved with being a Shortcuts creator.
I’ll be scraping data from a .shortcut file, plus potentially going into my Airtable logging process and how I save Action data as well.
Members can access the stream live below to get a reminder when it’s live or get back to this post at the right time using shortcuts.live:
Become a member to get access to access to the stream, plus:
One of the excellent features coming to Shortcuts for Mac is the addition of a scripting capability for the Shortcuts app itself – Apple has added AppleScript support for commands like opening and running shortcuts, even without opening the app at all.
Naturally, I immediately got excited to bring this possibility to life using the Stream Deck, a USB device from Elgato with hardware keys that can be customized to your heart’s extent (including using folders and subfolders):
The Stream Deck software for Mac allows users to add third-party plugins offered by the community, including one such plugin called “Run OSA script” that lets users input a script that gets triggered when the button is pressed:
To take advantage of this plugin, I’d need to write my own AppleScript – something I’m not super familiar with.
Thanks to this tweet from Alex Hay, developer of Toolbox Pro, I knew to use the Script Editor app to look into the capabilities of Shortcuts app by examining its’ AppleScript dictionary – here’s how:
Mac users can now easily automate their window management, interact with Finder, make disk images, perform actions taken from Automator, and take advantage of deeper Mac automation – plus there’s two actions not yet found in the betas.
In this 4,800-word piece (about 20 minutes average reading time), I’ll explain each of them in detail, plus give you my initial thoughts on what bringing this functionality to macOS means for the transition to Shortcuts as Apple’s main automation platform.
Become a member to get access to the post, plus:
This piece (4,700 words, about 20 minutes average reading time) includes my write up of the cross-platform actions, reordered into custom groups I’ve created – I’ll be covering the Mac-only actions next week.
I’ll also be adding screenshots and example shortcuts in a future version, so members can read up now and I’ll post the full guide once the public betas release.
Become a member to get access to the full post, plus:
Apple’s new AirTags are their cheapest standalone product, yet I think they’re one of the most interesting released in a while.
And that’s because of the U1 chip inside – now the fourth Apple product besides iPhone, Apple Watch, and HomePod mini to include one.
This ultra-wideband technology has super-precise tracking technology, which I think could enable a whole new wave of automation capabilities for Apple devices.
I made a video that explains my thoughts on what I’m calling “Spatial Awareness for Siri” – you can watch the whole thing on YouTube in under 3 minutes:
This post will walk you through my new Screenshot Workflow, which consists of two shortcuts… and a Mac app!
I’ve created a new Google Calendar for all of my livestreams so that folks can add it to their devices and see when I’ll be live for both public and private member streams:
I’ll include links for each event for public YouTube streams, member posts with unlisted streams embedded inside, and my Twitch channel.
Check out the calendar online here and add it directly to your Calendar using the iCal format.
This morning I published my new channel trailer for YouTube – “How To Get Started With Apple’s Shortcuts App”:
Make sure to visit the description for links to everything I mention, plus check out my updated Shortcuts Catalog.
It’s my pleasure to announce that I’ve completely revamped my Shortcuts Library portion of my Shortcuts Catalog, remaking what was previously hundreds of shortcuts into a condensed set of:
I spent many hours combining each of my 100 or so Shortcuts folders and putting each shortcut inside a single shortcut for that folder, filled with menus of different actions to take – this is the same content as before, repackaged to be much more accessible.
Now you can browse through the collection on a single page – just pick a shortcut that sounds interesting to you based on my descriptions, add it, and run it to further explore what functionality it provides.
If you’re just figuring out Shortcuts for the first time or checking out my Shortcuts Library, Apple’s error dialog for “Shortcut Can’t Be Added” can be a little confusing. When you go to add a shared shortcut for the first time, Shortcuts will say you’re “not allowed” to add them and that you’ll have to change your security settings, but then it doesn’t take you there to fix everything up.
To help anyone dealing with this problem out, I wrote up a guide for iMore that explains how to change the setting properly – and I have some advice for being safe with shortcuts you’re adding:
Every person who finds a shortcut online and goes to add it should look through the actions included and try to understand what’s happening before they add it to their collection – and certainly before they run it.
Last Friday, the episode of Automators that I recorded with Rosemary Orchard and David Sparks dropped — and it’s a great hour-and-a-half conversation about the current state of Shortcuts.
Rose, David, & I haven’t talked since the release of iOS 14, so this is a dive into how I’ve been applying those features, my latest breakthrough with my shortcuts, and my updated Shortcuts Library.
Rose & David are my kind of people, so this conversation was naturally a blast — listen to the full episode:
Hello Shortcuts friends!
If you’d like to be part of a community of people talking about and sharing Siri Shortcuts, you’re welcome to join my new Shortcuts User Group on Slack.
I’ve been running this small community for about a year now, consisting of a cohort of people who are interested in Shortcuts and want to learn from other people directly about how to integrate Siri Shortcuts into their lives.
If you join, you’ll get a chance to see how other individuals are using Shortcuts in creative ways, get ideas or inspiration on your own automations, and be able to check in with a group of like-minded folks.
We have channels for things like:
The community is open for anyone to join, although I do ask new members to be intentional and try to invite friends who’d want to actively participate over trying to grow the community as large as possible – these tend to work best when we all get a chance to know each other a bit. ?
Subscribers to my website membership will also be added to a private members-only channel so I can share the exclusive content there and chat with members directly.
Thanks for checking the Shortcuts User Group out – I look forward to meeting you in there!
This is the week! Once iOS 14.3 drops, millions of people will update their smartphones and suddenly be able to create their “app ideas” by adding them as shortcuts to their Home Screen.
The main change? The limitation where “custom icons always open into Shortcuts first” is now gone!
Shortcuts added to the Home Screen actually behave like you’d expect, opening into apps immediately – plus they run all the scripting actions perfectly, just like the Shortcuts widget.
I’ve tried to capture my excitement in a video – look for it soon on YouTube. But until then, here’s what’s new in Shortcuts this week:
Jump straight to the Catalog or sign up for a membership.
It’s finally here!
Apple has released iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 to users around the world – and that means everyone who updates will have the newest version of Siri Shortcuts installed.
Alongside today’s updates, I’m releasing the following:
Let me explain it a bit before you dive into everything.
Thanks to everything new in version 4 of the Shortcuts app, everyone can expect another leap in the automation potential of their Apple products:
My goal as an independent creator has always been to share all the knowledge I’ve learned about Shortcuts and make it free.
That’s because the Shortcuts app is free on Apple’s devices – I’ve always wanted to make sure anyone who doesn’t yet understand it could go online and learn more right away.
That desire is what got me to start my own YouTube channel, plus release my own Shortcuts Library and Action Directory on my website last fall.
But, as I got deeper into iOS 13, I realized I was sharing tons of ideas in my database, but didn’t make them very accessible on the web.
To help people to truly integrate Siri Shortcuts into their lives, I needed something more…
Last week, I had the pleasure of being a guest on episode 4 of Sigmund Judge’s podcast Magic Rays of Light, a new show dedicated to all things Apple TV.
That episode is out now and available to download in your podcast app of choice.
Talking with Sigmund was a treat and we had a great conversation about:
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.
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.
Shortcuts creator and designer Brad Siefert has created a dedicated website for people looking to discover various links and creators related to Siri Shortcuts – check out the new Shortcuts Directory.