Siri shortcuts in iOS 12: how to get new tricks with your old iPhone

In iOS 12, Apple has introduced a new and useful way to simplify your life by consolidating the tasks you do most often on your iPhone with an application called Shortcuts. Beyond the automation of daily tasks, shortcuts even offer new possibilities – tasks that you could not get before with your phone. Some of these features could be programmed through third-party applications such as IFTTT, but they are now integrated with iOS 12.

The shortcuts replace the old Apple workflow app and make Siri more powerful and more useful than ever. By recording custom phrases and adding them to the Siri directory, you can trigger a sequence of actions involving multiple applications. Unlike many Apple apps, shortcuts are not quite simple and can be daunting the first time you open them. So, here's how to configure it. I will also show you some shortcuts that you should check to get started.

There are two ways to use shortcuts. The best option is the Shortcuts app itself, which lets you create your own workflows from scratch. The app also comes with a shortcut gallery suggested by Apple. Apart from this, Siri will recommend shortcuts based on your daily activity on the iPhone. You can see them in Settings under Siri & Search.

First steps

First, install the Shortcuts app from the App Store.

The first time you open the application, your shortcut library will be empty. You can choose to add a custom shortcut or click the Gallery tab to browse the predefined shortcuts. Among Apple's choices is "Getting to work," which provides your ETA, tells you your first appointment in the calendar, and offers you a playlist for your ride. All this is done in one click.

You can press any shortcut in the Gallery to add it to your library. Some shortcuts require additional access and will require the necessary permissions to take control of various applications. From there, you can add a custom Siri phrase, rename the shortcut as you see fit, and customize its icon. Curiously, Apple allows you to use the icons of other applications such as Twitter, Trello or even WeChat and Weibo for your shortcut.

Some of the predefined shortcuts seem to be the best practical tips from a magazine. Do I really need a two minute timer to brush my teeth and a reminder to browse my favorite subreddits? Yet, novelty makes it fun.

Shortcuts to try

For now, one of my favorite shortcuts is Say Cheese, which takes a picture automatically. If you press Say Cheese, it works without allowing you to preview the photo. However, once you have changed the shortcut to add a custom voice phrase to Siri, such as "Activate trigger," you can position your phone with the help of a stick some sort of mount and take selfies by voice activation.

With the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 equipped with a pen S Pen this year that can also serve as a remote trigger, it's really cool that a shortcut like this can produce the same effect. However, it has its shortcomings. The further your phone is, especially if the back is facing you, the less Siri responds "Hey Siri". You can also switch from Say Cheese to the front camera only, as a quick fix to this problem.

Another great shortcut to try is DND Before I Leave, which activates Do not disturb while you have a meeting. Your phone will feel when you have left your current position and then only disable Do Not Disturb mode, which is great for leaving a meeting or a major conference where you can not take calls or text messages. I checked how far you have to go so your phone will see you have left a place and switch Do not disturb: about 0.2 km, or three minutes walk. This seems like an appropriate distance to get from a quiet meeting place to a noisier place where you can again receive calls, so the functionality seems convenient and relevant.

Other preconceived shortcuts recommended, to name a few: reading list, self-destructive clipboard, late performance, and GIF video conversion. All these elements are practical and already work in a relatively simple way. Late execution involves having calendar events with predefined locations. Therefore, if you are not already using the Apple Calendar app to set your calendar with specific location information, this is not helpful. Similarly, Play Playlist is based on Apple Music. The clipboard's self-destructive shortcut, which proposes to delete your message from the top secret clipboard in six minutes, is application-independent and therefore converts video into GIF, a skill that you previously had to trust. third-party applications.

In the month that followed the release of iOS 12, Apple added new shortcuts such as Calculate Tip, Where was it taken? And Dear Diary. Calculate Tip offers to automate one of the few mathematical calculations to quickly perform on a calculator before paying the bill. When you run the shortcut, it asks you the total amount of the bill and you can select the percentage you want to tilt, starting at 12%, which could be Apple trying to entice you to adopt good switching habits. Where was it taken displays a map showing where a photo was taken, if location services were enabled when you took the photo. And Dear Diary, which requires having the Day One Journal app, asks you a series of questions about your day, then creates a journal entry for you. If you have trouble keeping a journal of your daily thoughts, this shortcut makes it easier to follow.

Suggested shortcuts in the gallery can serve as a launch pad for models to adjust and add. The main limitation is support by a third party. You can technically call any application that you own through shortcuts, although you can not automate any action outside of its opening. However, this remains an improvement, since Siri was previously allowed to open only a few applications, such as Apple Music and Safari.

Apple shortcuts only work with certain applications. So, the features involving music work with Apple Music and not with Spotify or Pandora. If you're not a fan of apps like Apple Maps, Calendar, and Safari, and may prefer Google Maps, Google Calendar, and Google Chrome, you're locked in the Apple ecosystem for the time being.

Fortunately, Apple has opened shortcuts to third-party applications, but support for a particular application depends on whether the developer built it or not. Applications such as things to do, objects, Citymapper, Day One, Due reminders application, and others are currently running with shortcuts, and others are coming. The gallery displays options for creating shortcuts with supported applications on your phone. On my phone, shortcuts are suggested for the Evernote, Bear and Ulysses note-taking apps.

Create a shortcut from scratch

Preconceived shortcuts are a start, but if you really want to get the most out of this new iOS 12 app, you need to create your own. It's all about personalization: Tap the top right rocker icon to start renaming everything, add your own photo as an icon, and have Siri read your own custom phrases.

And the rest involves creativity and listening to the community. This has a huge community aspect, because you can share interesting shortcuts that you have thought through links (you just have to open them via Safari to add them to your library). There is a popular subdirectory for r / Shortcuts (formerly r / Workflow) that has grown exponentially since the release of the new application, as well as people posting on Twitter about their latest inventions.

With a little bazaar, you can ask Siri to give you flight updates, remind people that they owe you money and organize a busy morning routine. The last is a particularly fluid routine that you can open in Safari for your iPhone to work. Just make a few changes. First of all, if you do not have devices connected to the smart home, just delete this suggestion. Then add your name and postal code in the "Hello" text field and the field that displays the weather for your zip code. You will also need to get the shortcut of saving your weight in the gallery if you do not already have it.

One of the most popular shortcuts in the subdirectory simply adds text to a photo to create a memo. It's a pretty simple concept that usually takes a few more minutes to go mobile. But with the shortcut, this process is automated and takes 23 seconds. Just run this link in Safari and the option to add this shortcut is displayed.

When you create your own shortcuts, you have many options, such as Applications, Calendar, Contacts, Documents, Health, Maps, Music, Photos and Video, Scripts, Sharing, and Text. You can also use a shortcut inside a shortcut. Therefore, as part of your morning routine, you want to set a two minute brushing timer. You can add it. By using Text, and talking with text programming, you can get Siri to say things like "Seize the day!" And "You have that!"

Things I would like to see

Shortcuts are full of potential, but it's still common to run into errors while running your process. I would like to see cancel and restore buttons that could help edit a granular list of actions. It would also be useful for Apple to reward one way or another the users of creating particularly useful shortcuts by highlighting them in the app.

I would also like to see more useful troubleshooting information. Therefore, in case of failure, I can more easily determine the part of the programming that I have messed up. In particular, the integrations of Slack with Apple do not seem to work currently, any more than the direct sending of audio recordings.

Shortcuts can be as powerful or simple as you want and automate the basic actions you perform on your phone, as long as you're ready to do whatever it takes to set it up.