Skip to main content

Siri Shortcuts

33 'Siri Shortcuts' stories June 2018 - October 2018
See All Stories

BestPhotos launches new version featuring improved interface and Siri shortcuts

Avatar for Bradley Chambers Oct 17 2018 - 6:00 am PT
0 Comments
clean up iPhone photos

Anyone that has known me for any length of time knows that I take organizing my photo library very seriously. We can be headed home from a birthday party for one of our kids, and I’ll ask my wife to cull through the photos we took, and add them to an album.

One of the best things about smartphones is you can take 1,000 photos in twenty minutes, but it’s also one of the worst things. I know most people will take a burst of photos, and then never go back through them. They’ll be left with a bunch of copies of a similar shot. In my opinion, it’s a lot easier to enjoy your library, when you take the time to clean up iPhone photos. The problem is that it’s time-consuming using the built-in tools.


Expand
Expanding
Close

Philips Hue app now supports Siri Shortcuts, with pro-active suggestions

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Oct 3 2018 - 4:51 am PT
0 Comments

If you’ve been looking forward to the Philips Hue Siri Shortcuts support promised back in August, you’ll be pleased to hear that it has now landed.

We are excited to introduce Siri Shortcuts for Hue. Siri now learns when you are using your favorite scenes and suggests them for quick activation right on your lock screen, Siri search or Siri watch-face. You can also record personal phrases to activate your favorite scenes and include them as actions in the Apple Shortcuts app …


Expand
Expanding
Close

Overcast 5 brings Apple Watch playback, new Now Playing design, Siri Shortcuts, more

Avatar for Zac Hall Sep 17 2018 - 12:29 pm PT
0 Comments

Overcast 5.0 is a major update to the podcast player for iPhone and iPad — and now Apple Watch. The Overcast update for iOS 12 and watchOS 5 includes a cleaner Now Playing screen, support for Siri Shortcuts, the return of the standalone Apple Watch app which is now greatly improved, and more.


Expand
Expanding
Close

Poll: With Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12, do you think you’ll spend less time hands-on with apps?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Aug 2 2018 - 5:16 am PT
0 Comments

MacWorld has an interesting piece entitled ‘How subscriptions, Siri, and Shortcuts in iOS 12 will forever change Apple’s App Store.’

Michael Simon’s suggestion is that Siri Shortcuts will enable us to use voice to do things which currently require us to get hands-on with apps, and that this will change the way in which we interact with our phones …


Expand
Expanding
Close

iOS 12: How to create custom Siri Shortcuts

Avatar for Greg Barbosa Jun 5 2018 - 4:55 pm PT
0 Comments
iOS 12 Siri Shortcuts with Workflow

Siri Shortcuts is Apple’s answer to a more robust personal assistant across their product line. A near visual clone to its predecessor Workflow, the new Shortcuts app brings deeper automation to iOS devices. Developers will be able to create “donations“, specific actions within their apps, that can then be controlled by Siri. By chaining these donations together, users will be able to personalize Siri requests to fit their personal use cases.

During the WWDC 2018 keynote, Apple demoed just how much Shortcuts is able to accomplish. Kim Beverett from the Siri Shortcuts team created a custom shortcut that allowed her to: send someone a message on her ETA, navigate to her home, set her HomeKit thermostat to 70 degrees, turn on her fan, and then play her favorite NPR station.

Although Siri Shortcuts isn’t officially out yet, even on the iOS 12 developer beta, we can surface a lot of this functionality with the currently available Workflow app. Let’s dive in.


Expand
Expanding
Close

CMV: Techies will love Siri Shortcuts, but most normal people will never use

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Jun 5 2018 - 5:28 am PT
0 Comments

Apple was the first company to bring a voice-driven intelligent assistant to the masses. Since then, however, it’s been overtaken in capabilities by both Google and Amazon.

As I’ve written before, that’s not coincidence. Google collects and analyzes huge volumes of personal data to help make its intelligent assistant as powerful as possible. Amazon lets anyone create a ‘recipe’ which any Echo owner can use. Apple, in contrast, chooses to limit the amount of personal data it collects and uses, and tightly controls access to Siri by third-party companies.

That approach has arguably become a strong selling-point at a time when the privacy of user data has become headline news in the mainstream press. All the same, many Siri users do find it frustrating that Apple’s AI – the one that once led the market – is now the dumbest kid on the block …


Expand
Expanding
Close