Welcome to Issue 36 of “What’s New in Shortcuts”!
I’ve had the new iPad Pro and the Siri remote for Apple TV in my hands for a few days now and I wanted to give members a digest of my thoughts before I create videos on each.
Plus, I’ve got a new set of shortcuts to go along with Flexibits’ apps, new Notion shortcuts, and a bundle of good links for you all – plus how I’m using Shortcuts with Apple TV:
? NEW FROM ME THIS WEEK
Two apps with Shortcuts support for one subscription, my new Notion shortcuts, and another stream for diving deeper into the API – plus a teaser for next week:
- CardHop and Fantastical
I’ve created two new shortcuts—Fantasticalendar and Rolodex for Cardhop—that take advantage of all the shortcuts available in Flexibits’ set of apps. Cardhop 2 just released on Tuesday with a cross-application subscription, so now one price gets you both apps – and these shortcuts can help you get even more out of those experiences. - Notion shortcuts from last week’s stream ?
In Last Thursday’s livestream, I walked viewers through working with Notion’s API from scratch – and came up with three shortcuts that members can use now to tap into Notion: Copy Notion Database ID, Open Notion Page, and Add Notion Page. Plus, I’m also adding time stamps to the previous stream to make it easier to follow along retroactively – look for those by the end of the day today. - New member stream on Friday at 9am PST ?
Following up on last week’s stream, I’m doing another this Friday at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 16:00 UTC to round out the Notion API exploration – I’ll be building shortcuts that interact with more advanced data types, building more of a front-end for the shortcuts themselves, and summarizing what I’ve learned into more digestible bits.
Next week I’ll be sharing my set of Mac shortcuts, my final iOS 14 Home Screen write-up, and updates on the User Group ahead of WWDC.
? POSTS FROM TWITTER
The last few weeks I’ve shared posts from the Shortcuts User Group and the Shortcuts subreddit – here’s a few I came across from the Twitter community that regularly shares new ideas:
- Apple’s new Accessibility shortcuts
Last Thursday, Apple Support on Twitter celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day by sharing upcoming features and creating a new shortcut specifically to help you take advantage of all the Accessibility actions. Make sure to check out Apple’s shortcut & their collection in the Gallery, plus My Accessibility shortcuts from last year. - Simon’s shortcuts for removing tracking parameters
Simon Stovring, developer of apps like Scriptable and DataJar, has shared a simple shortcut for removing tracking parameters from any URL so you can share a clean link with friends. - Damien’s tootbrushing shortcut
Damien Menn took inspiration from my Shortcuts work and put together a simple shortcut for his Sonicare toothbrush – get it on Twitter.
P.S. Sorry the links were broken for the Gallery section last week – I took those from straight from the Gallery but didn’t realize they wouldn’t work on other devices. If you didn’t, try searching for Photo Grid, Mood Journal, or QR Your Shortcuts directly in the Gallery!
? LINKS SINCE LAST TIME
Scotty’s got a tasty shortcut for us, Khoi Vinn has a great shortcut I missed, and TechRadar has a good getting started with Siri guide:
- Sticking Stuff Together with Bubble Gum | Scotty Jackson
Scotty Jackson continues to impress with his clever usage of Shortcuts, this time basically recreating the features of the Hook app for Mac and making a shortcut that lets you generate deep links back to different apps you use – you can stick them together much easier with this. - ExactPic – A Shortcut for Precise Image Outputs on iOS | Khoi Vinn
As I was clearing out almost a year of unread RSS feeds, I came across this great post from Adobe designer and Shortcuts enthusiast Khoi Vinn who created a method for precisely cropping your images and outputting a desired size consistently every time. Definitely read through the post and check out his other Shortcuts coverage. - How to use Siri: tips and tricks to improve Apple’s voice assistant on iPhone and more | TechRadar
TechRadar has a great introduction to the whole Siri experience, from basic commands all the way to integrating Shortcuts – check this out or send it to someone who’s just learning about the Siri Shortcuts experience.
? SHORTCUTS SPOTLIGHT
Using Shortcuts with Apple TV
While the new Siri remote is probably the best part of the Apple TV update this spring, I have found myself using the Shortcuts actions fairly often in the last year.
In particular I love the ability to wake/sleep the device, open specific apps or even the screensaver, skip ahead or control playback, and even manage captions or the current user profile.
P.S. Like my newest Home Screen setup? This isn’t even showing all the Shortcuts widgets either ?.
I have one main shortcut called Control Apple TV that I keep in my primary media-based widget on both iPhone and iPad—with the Smart Stack rotation turned Off so I can get right back to my remote controls—and use that to quickly perform any actions when I don’t have the remote right with me.
Plus, for my next video, I’ve also have an entire folder of shortcuts with the same actions—but redesigned specifically for Siri—each taking advantage of a different feature with a natural phrase for triggering it – look for that on YouTube soon!
Until then, Adam’s Tech Life has a video up with similar ideas – check it out to see it in action as well as how to set one up yourself.
