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Apple Acquires Popular Automation App Workflow
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This seems good on the outside as it will most likely get baked in at the system level but in reality Apple will gut it of support for many services that compete with their own. I wouldn't be surprised if they remove the Dropbox support and only allow iCloud drive for example.
Workflow is so useful but if you use it a lot and regularly, this is probably a bad thing. As others have mentioned; look what happened to Siri.
Workflow is so useful but if you use it a lot and regularly, this is probably a bad thing. As others have mentioned; look what happened to Siri.
they have a special department to make things bad.
..to suck any kind of innovation from thinks
I like Automator for the Mac, but its features stagnated and not many developers supported it.
This app looks interesting but I can't see a particular use for it yet. Given that Apple are letting the developers keep their branding/company title in the App Store I'd say the acquisition is more about procuring the developers and hints at the sort of things Apple are looking at for iOS. This could be useful for home automation via HomeKit for instance.
The UI is a bit jarring!
This app looks interesting but I can't see a particular use for it yet. Given that Apple are letting the developers keep their branding/company title in the App Store I'd say the acquisition is more about procuring the developers and hints at the sort of things Apple are looking at for iOS. This could be useful for home automation via HomeKit for instance.
The UI is a bit jarring!
Somehow I never discovered WorkFlow although I had looked into the alternative IFTTT before.
In the AppStore the description says "WorkFlow opens up infinite possibilities of what you can do...". For me removing Telegram support halves the possibilities at least (sure mathematically half of infinite is still inifinite). And how about Signal support?
If Apple really wants WorkFlow to shine, then have it opened up, allow any scheme to be added and setup by users. And if users want to use Google Maps, let them - don't even think about forcing people to your own products but stick to convincing them to use your product by quality and ease-of-use measures. I already prefer Apple Maps over Google Maps as Apple Maps seems speedier.
Maybe WorkFlow can help me administering our WhatsApp Neighborhood Watch groups in our city (about 3000 members). Problem is we use Telegram as the fallback network - we have had alerts in the past while WhatsApp functionality appeared funky. Just discovered WorkFlow just doesn't support sending messages to WhatsApp groups. However the developers said on reddit they were working on exactly this feature for Telegram. Until now I'm afraid. So, WorkFlow is not the right solution here.
Guess because Apple crippled WorkFlow immediately after acquisition I'm not at all convinced WorkFlow will help me in the end with organizing and automating my rather chaotic lifestyle. Instead of infinite possibilities I for now end up with nil.
Any alternatives?
In the AppStore the description says "WorkFlow opens up infinite possibilities of what you can do...". For me removing Telegram support halves the possibilities at least (sure mathematically half of infinite is still inifinite). And how about Signal support?
If Apple really wants WorkFlow to shine, then have it opened up, allow any scheme to be added and setup by users. And if users want to use Google Maps, let them - don't even think about forcing people to your own products but stick to convincing them to use your product by quality and ease-of-use measures. I already prefer Apple Maps over Google Maps as Apple Maps seems speedier.
Maybe WorkFlow can help me administering our WhatsApp Neighborhood Watch groups in our city (about 3000 members). Problem is we use Telegram as the fallback network - we have had alerts in the past while WhatsApp functionality appeared funky. Just discovered WorkFlow just doesn't support sending messages to WhatsApp groups. However the developers said on reddit they were working on exactly this feature for Telegram. Until now I'm afraid. So, WorkFlow is not the right solution here.
Guess because Apple crippled WorkFlow immediately after acquisition I'm not at all convinced WorkFlow will help me in the end with organizing and automating my rather chaotic lifestyle. Instead of infinite possibilities I for now end up with nil.
Any alternatives?
Acquire useful human talent and useful software code, kill everything they don't need and prevent other companies from getting in early to either do the same thing or just destroy a potential future competitor for something Apple are already working on.
Welcome to the business world. Apple have done the same before and will again. Buy what they need or burn down what others may compete with.
That happened to me with Launcher Pro. It sounded useful like a toaster but after 2 Weeks of automating things I realized it was faster go straight to the app to perform the task. I decided not to try work flow as it would probably go the same way.
I think both apps fill needs in the older ios 8 ecosystem, but recent advances have reduced their utility.
My primary use for Workflow is to manage canned group messages that I send on a weekly basis. A single tap and I have the message composed with all the recipients ready to send. There a few other workflows that I have created which I don't use as often but still very helpful.
I like Workflow. One of the things you can do is assign a button in the Today view (accessible anywhere in iOS), or a 3D touch button on the Home screen to launch workflows. I've used this for things like starting and stopping services on my iMac remotely through SSH. Think of being able to make basic little functional "buttons" in iOS with drag & drop and a little knowhow.
And maybe it will even get access to some deeper functions of iOS that Apple would only expose to their own apps.
And maybe it will even get access to some deeper functions of iOS that Apple would only expose to their own apps.
I'm sure they will. It will be so user friendly it will only have one button: "Convert Mac into iPad".
this could be great news - workflow always had great potential, but most of the times i couldn't get it to do the things i liked it to do, because it was limited by what third party apps are allowed to do in ios. and when i got it to do what i wanted it to it was often overly complicated - just like good old automator.
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Why did they get rid of Pocket after Apple bought this app, but keep things like Instapaper? All my links are in Pocket!
For something like this to be truly useful, you can't be Apple about what people use. You have to empower them with the freedom to get their work done—even if it's not something Apple approves of or is invested in. I'd be especially wary of using this going forward as the app gets auto updated in the background to remove functionality that people rely upon.
For something like this to be truly useful, you can't be Apple about what people use. You have to empower them with the freedom to get their work done—even if it's not something Apple approves of or is invested in. I'd be especially wary of using this going forward as the app gets auto updated in the background to remove functionality that people rely upon.
Anyone that thinks Workflow will get attention other than updates to lock it down to the Apple ecosystem are delusional.
Notice in Apple's release on the acquisition that they only talk about Workflows accessibility features.
This is not good overall for iOS users of Workflow. The engineers will be reassigned to other features apple wants to implement and then Workflow will slowly fade into the background with nothing to fill its void. Bummer.
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Forget about options now, limiting to Apple Maps and other iOS only API's is closing it down.
Notice in Apple's release on the acquisition that they only talk about Workflows accessibility features.
This is not good overall for iOS users of Workflow. The engineers will be reassigned to other features apple wants to implement and then Workflow will slowly fade into the background with nothing to fill its void. Bummer.
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Forget about options now, limiting to Apple Maps and other iOS only API's is closing it down.
First, judging from the Daring Fireball post, they aren't going to kill it - but that said, the unfortunate example is the transit info apps (I'm blanking on the name), there were separate ones for NJ Transit, Metro North, LIRR, etc. that were incredibly useful. Apple used them to incorporate transit info in Apple Maps - which was great. Unfortunately they killed the individual apps, which were still very useful for the fully daily train schedule, live status updates, etc.
Companies always say that when there is a buyout. Sure it might last for a year before the talent pool is raped and pillaged but in the end the product dies a death or is changed beyond recognition.
It's rare for an acquisition to be given autonomy and resources to exist outside of the corporate umbrella infrastructure.
Hopefully Apple will do three things:
- Integrate Workflow into iOS so it functions a little less like a workaround.
- The give developers, including Google, the necessary information to make their apps usable from Workflow by creating routines that handle Workflow calls.
- They require developers to support Workflow in order to get App store approval.
1. I think should be a given and I hope that is the case.
2. Is another sensible choice but I'm not convinced this will happen given the functionality that has been removed. Apple clearly want users to use the Apple apps first as part of the user's workflows so will not make it easy for the likes of Google Maps to Chrome to be easily integrated.
3. I don't see the need for this. Only certain apps are a natural fit for Workflow so to make it a requirement seems overkill. Hopefully make it easy to integrate and then leave it up to the developers to decide if they want to add support.
This is why Automator has failed in OS X - the developers don't bother with it.
Yup. I think on the mobile front though, there are different usage cases where automation can make more sense. Workflow already works well with a lot of applications - it may be further expanded if included in the core OS.
I just hope they don't totally screw up Workflow functionality for a few basic options and instead increase the possible interactions.