Category: Siri Shortcuts

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Siri Shortcuts

14 Accessibility shortcuts for Global Accessibility Awareness Day

On episode 30 of Smart Tech Today, I spent about 10 minutes describing a series of shortcuts I put together that take advantage of the accessibility actions found in the Shortcuts app ahead of today, May 21, which is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).

Accessibility features are incredibly important for modern technology to provide, making it possible for everyone to utilize their hardware & software regardless of their personal situation – you either have direct accessibility needs that require specific use of your technology, you’ll one day need them yourself, or you benefit from those features anyway (think Dark mode).

The Shortcuts app has always been an Accessibility priority for Apple, with them declaring as much in their confirmation story when they acquisition of the Workflow app before it became Shortcuts1:

“The Workflow app was selected for an Apple Design Award in 2015 because of its outstanding use of iOS accessibility features, in particular an outstanding implementation for VoiceOver with clearly labeled items, thoughtful hints, and drag/drop announcements, making the app usable and quickly accessible to those who are blind or low-vision.”

In iOS 13, Apple went further and added a set of actions to Shortcuts for controlling Accessibility features, available to use inside the shortcut editor in Apps > Settings.

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Links Siri Shortcuts

I’m washing my hands

New shortcut: I’m washing my hands:

Sets a timer for 20 seconds so that you can wash your hands thoroughly without thinking about how long it takes.

Use this to help internalize how long it takes to wash your hands, especially amongst the Coronavirus concerns.

Get the shortcut or view a full screenshot of the shortcut.

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Entering your home with just a tap (using NFC & iOS)

Matt Haughey, writing for his site A Whole Lotta Nothing:

As you might have guessed from a previous post, I’m not a fan of carrying keys and or even having to use them. When I moved to a new place, I knew I’d use the front door as my main point of entry (instead of a garage attached to a house), so I wanted to get it as automated as possible, where the front door unlocks as I approach it, and locks when I leave.

Matt started with an August Smart Lock and ended up getting NFC tags so that everyone in his family could tap in and out of the house. Be sure to check out the full article for all his photos of the setup too.

This bit is excellent – I’m definitely thinking about NFC “skins” instead of having white dots all over the place:

To make them blend in a bit more, I went to my local Lowe’s and bought a $5 roll of adhesive-backed shelf paper in a maple pattern that mostly matched my wood posts. I used a NFC tag as a template, traced it onto the paper, and cut out two holes, then pulled off the backing and stuck them over the tags. From a distance, you can barely tell they’re there since I put the NFC stickers over wood knots and they look like wood repair patches now.

I’ve joked before that Matt is my smart home spirit animal – he continues to fill that role well ?.

Read the full article on A Whole Lotta Nothing.

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Podcasts Siri Shortcuts Tips & Tricks Video

“Show me this clip” for video podcasts with this Overcast to YouTube shortcut

If you didn’t already know, my podcast Smart Tech Today comes with a video feed now – you can download a full video feed in Podcasts, or subscribe to the YouTube channel to get the episodes every week, or watch live on Twitch every Monday at 4pm PST.

While the show is designed as an audio podcast, our network This Week in Tech produces the video so anyone can watch too – I have lots of fun being on camera with Mikah.

Being a podcast that’s also “video capable,” I’ve always thought it’s a shame that it’s not easier to listen when you want to, or watch when you want to, with a way to switch between both on the fly.

If you’re on Overcast user, you’re in luck – I’ve solved the problem in one direction, taking Overcast’s “Share URL with timestamp” Siri Shortcut and combining it with YouTube’s timestamps feature to let you jump into the video feed at a moment’s notice.1

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How far did I walk today?

Today’s new shortcut is How far did I walk today? is designed for CES attendees but is also good for anyone really:

Looks at the Health app for total steps and distance for today, then formats the information to display in an alert or be spoken back from Siri.

Uses only the Apple Watch as the main source of data so no information is duplicated from the phone.

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Which CES shuttle should I take?

New shortcut “Which CES shuttle should I take?“ for CES attendees:

Pulls from a dictionary of CES hotel names and their associated shuttle #s, lets you choose from the names, then tells you which shuttle to take.

Also opens your final destination in Maps so you can follow along.

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Playing a podcast by time of day using “If” conditionals

This afternoon, @kcjokes asked for a shortcut that can play a podcast based on the time of day:

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Log your sun exposure with an Apple Watch automation ⌚️

Shows a screenshot from the Shortcuts app with “Get Current Weather,” “Get the Device name,” an “If” action set to “If Device Name contains iPad”, then “Show Result,” otherwise “Log Health Sample” and then “Show Alert.”

Here’s a Personal Automation for Apple Watch that I’m running automatically at the start of my Walking workouts – Log UV index:

Gets the current weather at the current location and logs the UV index for the hour into the Health app, then displays it or speaks it back when run via Siri.

Includes “Get Device Name” and an “If” action to account for being run on the iPad, which does not have the Health app and would otherwise fail.

Shows a screenshot from the Shortcuts app with “Get Current Weather,” “Get the Device name,” an “If” action set to “If Device Name contains iPad”, then “Show Result,” otherwise “Log Health Sample” and then “Show Alert.”

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Singalong

New shortcut Singalong for Apple Music users:

Turns on the Apple TV, asks if you want to Hand Off music to the TV from the current device, then opens the Music app and shows the Remote on the current device.

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Links Siri Shortcuts

2020 Meme generator

Sometimes you just have to make a meme into a shortcut:

Takes the “2020” meme with a line of text in the middle and uses a find & replace to swap out your own text, then copies it and opens Twitter. Your new input must be less than 30 characters to fit.

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Twitter self-search

Self-search is a handy shortcut I built for Twitter users:

Using a Twitter username inputted on import and a keyword entered when the shortcut is run, this shortcut takes the info, URL-encodes it into a Twitter link, and opens into the app to show the results.

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Pick random Office episode

If you love The Office and want to have a random episode picked for you, this shortcut is for you:

Using a dictionary filled out with the season numbers and corresponding episode counts for each, this picks a random season, then episode, then displays it in an alert as Netflix opens on the Apple TV.

Works aloud when run from Siri; good for HomePod.

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Move from Ulysses to iA Writer

Just created this new shortcut Move from Ulysses to iA Writer:

Gets sheets from a group in Ulysses, asks which one to use, then adds it into iA Writer via their URL scheme. Only accepts text, so you’ll have to move over any images.

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MacStories releases MusicBot, putting most of Apple Music in one Siri Shortcut

Federico Viticci, doing his usual excellent work on MacStories:

For the past several months, I’ve been working on a shortcut designed to be the ultimate assistant for Apple Music.

Called MusicBot, the shortcut encompasses dozens of different features and aims to be an all-in-one assistant that helps you listen to music more quickly, generate intelligent mixes based on your tastes, rediscover music from your library, control playback on AirPlay 2 speakers, and much more.

I poured hundreds of hours of work into MusicBot, which has gained a permanent spot on my Home screen. Best of all, MusicBot is available to everyone for free.

MusicBot is yet another one of Federico’s shortcuts that turns a vast number of functions into a single Siri Shortcut for you to use. Plus, look at that custom icon!

I quite literally have over 50 music-based shortcuts that this will be replacing.

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Offsite Podcasts Siri Shortcuts

Smart Tech Today 11: Samuel L. Jackson on Your Amazon Echo

On episode 11 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I covered a K-Pop rapper’s AirPods problem, Samuel L. Jackson on your Echo, and Sling TV on your Google Nest Hub:

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Siri Shortcuts

Opening directly into Watch Later on YouTube with a Siri Shortcut

After adding a few videos from YouTube to my Watch Later playlist this afternoon, I looked in the Apps section of the Shortcuts app for some Siri Shortcuts from the YouTube app.

I’ve found actions that open the Search and Subscriptions section of the app before, but I wanted to quickly jump into the Watch Later bit which is buried in the Library tab – alas, there was no shortcut.

However, I then realized that YouTube.com links often redirect into the app, and I might be able to use that deep link instead.

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Guest appearances Offsite Podcasts Siri Shortcuts

Guest spot on the iMore show #674: Shortcuts!

The day after iOS 13 launched, I was a guest on the iMore show to talk all about the updates to Siri Shortcuts (and a bit about the new iPhone):

Shortcuts expert Matthew Cassinelli is here with a wealth of information for making life better with iOS 13! He guides Lory Gil and Georgia Dow through the basics of shortcut creation and shares some of his own creations from matthewcassinelli.com.

I had a really great time talking to Lory Gil and Georgia Dow – Lory is the editor at iMore and corrects the mistakes in my freelance articles, and Georgia does a wonderful job as Senior Editor there too.

We also recorded this as a livestream, so here’s the video if you want to follow along – I even turned on my main camera with a top-down shot for part of it:

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Gear Siri Shortcuts

4 types of NFC tags to buy for your Siri Shortcuts automations

In iOS 13.1, the Shortcuts app added Automations, a feature that lets you use contextual triggers to show notifications for shortcuts you want to run or, for a subset of the option, run a shortcut entirely in the background. I’ll be covering those updates in the future, but I wanted to share links to NFC tags that I’ve bought and tested.

See, one of the Automation triggers lets you use “Near-Field Communication” tags that look like little wires printed onto stickers or stashed in cards like your credit cards, transit cards, or even in the Apple Watch or payment terminals for things like Apple Pay.

Thankfully, the new NFC tag automation trigger is one of the Automations that lets shortcut run “without asking” – they can fire off immediately when the trigger is detected, performing its operations in the background instead of requiring you to confirm via a notification first.

In iOS 13.1, this lets you run almost any shortcut just by tapping your iPhone to a small tag you’ve set up with Shortcuts, bringing the power of your apps and smartphone into the physical world with simple, cheap NFC tags.

So naturally, I bought a bunch, stuck them all over my house, and started testing them:

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Covering the Siri Shortcuts update for iOS 13 live on YouTube

On Thursday, a few hours after the release of my Shortcuts Library, I covered the entire iOS 13 update for Siri Shortcuts in a YouTube livestream.

After a bug in the macOS Catalina beta last week prevented Final Cut Pro from staying open at all, the work on my in-progress video was frozen1. I couldn’t re-do it in time while I was also publishing over 150 shortcuts for people to use.

So I did it live:

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Siri Shortcuts

Announcing my Shortcuts Library, featuring 150 Siri Shortcuts to use with iOS 13

Photograph of Matthew Cassinelli's Shortcuts Library open on his iPad on his desk.
Photograph of Matthew Cassinelli's Shortcuts Library open on his iPad on his desk.
My Siri Shortcuts library

Looking for the updated collection? Check out my Shortcuts Catalog, the announcement post, and my new membership.

Now that Apple has officially released iOS 13 to the public, I am excited to share my personal library of 150+ custom Siri Shortcuts for everyone to add and use.

I’ve worked countless hours this summer building up a database of my shortcuts, giving each shortcut a description and explanation of how I use it. These are saved inside each shortcut in Comment actions as well, so you can still reference the intended use after adding it to your Shortcuts app.

You can find my Shortcuts Library at the bottom of this post and here on my website at matthewcassinelli.com/siri-shortcuts. But first, I wanted to contextualize my collection.

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