Interactive Widgets Are Built Using App Intents: What That Means For Shortcuts »

Speaking on The Talk Show #382, Iconfactory developer Craig Hockenberry talks about the advantages for Shortcuts that will be realized off the work app developers put into interactive widgets.


Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory speaking on The Talk Show #382, starting at 1:13:23 (transcribed and lightly edited for text):

I see a lot of opportunities there for developers to make the widgets just come alive. I think it’s a great little thing that they’ve done.

The side effect of this, I think is—even kind of probably better in the long term—is that that way you do this is something that’s sort of like a little shortcut. And it’s gonna expose a lot of developers to the Shortcuts technology.

So like that button that’s on your widget that says, oh, play this radio station? Well, I’m obviously gonna write a shortcut that says, play this radio station. So you can automate that. So, like, if I go into my Focus mode, or if I get home, it starts playing the radio station on the kitchen HomePod.

And for me that’s the thing that really is powerful because it takes that interaction and makes it something that you can use throughout your life. That’s for me the most interesting thing, that’s why we’re talking about vision OS and all these other things is interactions that fit into your life, are really – that’s the goal.

That’s the thing I love doing the most.

Lovely sentiment – Craig gets it.

Listen to the full episode and check out Iconfactory.

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