What’s New in Shortcuts – Issue #078

Welcome to Issue 78 of “What’s New in Shortcuts” — did you order an iPhone too?

After this week’s keynote, I opted for a black iPhone 14 Pro and upped my storage to 1TB (in case of video), plus put in an order for AirPods Pro 2 to replace my aging set — and I’m still thinking about getting an Apple Watch Ultra in-store at launch… (you’ll know why in a moment).

Now, iOS 16 is all set to release on Monday and I’ll be going wild over all the new App Shortcuts & more-powerful Shortcuts actions — I can’t wait to try everything out once they hit the App Store in full.

Plus, I’m super excited to put out my set of iOS 16 shortcuts, start in on covering this year’s new opportunities, and get back to YouTube videos now that I’m fully settled in my new apartment — until then, here’s what new this week:

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? Stories of the week

Ahead of the iPhone keynote, I shared an updated set of event-specific shortcuts that you can use to tune in, take notes, and tweet with special hashtags over on iMore:

Automating the Apple keynote: 5 shortcuts to use on any event day – Matthew Cassinelli Automating the Apple keynote: 5 shortcuts to use on any event day – Matthew Cassinelli — matthewcassinelli.com

Time for the Apple Event with these shortcuts for tuning in, setting up, and tweeting out your hot takes.

Plus, just before the event, Gui Rambo shared the direct URL for the stream, so I made this shortcut:

During the iPhone event, I also stopped paying attention once I saw the Apple Watch Ultra’s special Action button and saw on Twitter that it can actually be assigned to a shortcut — I broke the news on my own site here:

You can set the new Action button on Apple Watch Ultra to anything in Shortcuts – Matthew Cassinelli You can set the new Action button on Apple Watch Ultra to anything in Shortcuts – Matthew Cassinelli — matthewcassinelli.com

The new Apple Watch Ultra features a dedicated Action button — and it can be customized with any shortcut.

After the iPhone announcement and the Dynamic Island part of the presentation, I also got this idea stuck in my head — will shortcuts be run/expand out of the Dynamic Island? Can Shortcuts users control anything here? We’ll have to see…

On Thursday, ahead of iPhone pre-orders going live Friday morning, I shared this set of shortcuts for the Apple Store app to help folks get their order in — I definitely relaunched the app about 20 times from the widget during the five minutes I couldn’t get in to order, and will be checking in on my order status throughout the week:

iPhone pre-orders: Apple Store shortcuts to help get your order in – Matthew Cassinelli iPhone pre-orders: Apple Store shortcuts to help get your order in – Matthew Cassinelli — matthewcassinelli.com

Ordering online or in the app? These shortcuts will help you place your preorder on-time and check on your delivery as it ships.

On Friday, Federico Viticci published an OS preview story for MacStories about how Shortcuts is much more approachable now thanks to App Shortcuts.

I’m curious to see reader’s reactions to this feature and if this set of changes makes Shortcuts easier for you all to learn too, so definitely let me know later this fall as you settle into it!

Shortcuts in iOS 16: The Potential of App Shortcuts for Everyone - MacStories Shortcuts in iOS 16: The Potential of App Shortcuts for Everyone – MacStories — www.macstories.net

A note from Federico: This year, I’ve decided to try some new things for my annual iOS 16 review. Some you’ll see on Monday. One of them is previewing small excerpts from the review in the OS Preview series on MacStories and MacStories Weekly for Club MacStories. Today, I’m posting a preview of a section

This weekend, Adam Tow, developer of Mix Effect, shared this blog post about how he sets his iPhone to avoid accidentally squeezing the buttons while in his Osprey waist pack, which eventually ends up triggering Emergency Calls and sends off a warning while he’s just running:

Turn Off Raise to Wake and Tap to Wake When Running with the iPhone to Prevent Accidental Emergency Calls – tow.com Turn Off Raise to Wake and Tap to Wake When Running with the iPhone to Prevent Accidental Emergency Calls – tow.com — tow.com

I have been getting back in shape after losing some fitness two and a half years into the pandemic. Today marks the 12th consecutive week that I have done a long Saturday morning run of over thirteen miles. Most of my self-supported half marathons have taken me along the San Tomas Aquinos Trail from Santa…

? Tweets of the week

While researching I came across this set of automations from Stephen Robles, which I seemed to have missed — this is a great idea:

I loved this thread from Ryan Speaker about how he optimized a set of shortcuts over time to better fit his needs — this is exactly how mine tend to change too:

This tweet also reminded me of a nice feature that’s new to folks just upgrading to iOS 16 this week — shortcuts run much faster now!

Even simple things like the way menus appear are speedier and don’t take as long to animate:

That’s all for this week!

In lieu of covering more app teasers in this issue, I’ve been collecting iOS 16 apps that will be supporting App Shortcuts and am covering it this week, so keep your eye out for that:

Plus, look for my iOS 16 shortcuts release, the first of multiple member updates this fall, a new stream supporting St. Jude, and more — the start of a new season of Shortcuts is upon us!

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