Here's What You Can Do With the iOS 26 Apple Intelligence Shortcuts App

[MacRumors]

Apple overhauled the Shortcuts app in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, and there are now Apple Intelligence options that users can take advantage of. The app supports Apple Intelligence models for things like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more.

There are several pre-programmed Shortcuts in the Gallery that you can select in iOS 26. Here's what Apple offers, along with the descriptions:

• Morning Summary - Use Model to describe the day ahead of you.
• Action Items From Meeting Notes - Use Model to grab action items from meeting notes.
• Haiku - Use Model to write a you a fun haiku.
• Leftover Recipes - Use Model to whip up a quick recipe with leftovers you have in the fridge.
• Summarize PDF - Use Model to summarize the open PDF in Safari.
• Is Severance Season 3 Out? - Use Model to find out if something has been released.
• ASCII Art - Use Model to draw you some ASCII art.
• Document Review - Use Mode to help you compare and contrast documents.
• Reminders Roulette - Use Model to punt an unimportant reminder to tomorrow.
• Get Started With Language Models - A tutorial for Use Model with examples.

As the last pre-made Shortcut suggests, you can create your own shortcuts that incorporate Apple's AI model, and Apple's offerings serve as examples.

When you go to create a Shortcut, there's a new Apple Intelligence section. You can opt to use an on-device model, a cloud model that takes advantage of Private Cloud Compute, or ChatGPT. There are some pre-determined options, so you can do things like open Visual Intelligence or generate an image with Image Playground.

There are several Writing Tools features for adjusting the tone of text, proofreading, creating a list from text, summarizing text, or rewriting text.

When you tap on Cloud, On-Device Model, or ChatGPT, there's an open-ended prompt where you can write in what you want to do. You need to work within the confines of the model that Apple provides, pairing it with other functionality in Shortcuts. You can pull in data from the Weather app, your Calendar, and Reminders, then ask the model to prepare a summary, for example. AI models can be incorporated into any Shortcut.

iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe are in the early stages of beta testing, so the work on Shortcuts has just started, and Apple will be refining the app over the course of the beta testing period.

Article Link: Here's What You Can Do With the iOS 26 Apple Intelligence Shortcuts App

 

[LordArchie]

Loving this.. waiting for some really cool shortcuts. Great list to start from

 

[211]

I still don’t understand Shortcuts. Can I just tell it what I want now and it will create it?

 

[Patriot24]

I still don’t understand Shortcuts. Can I just tell it what I want now and it will create it?

We're not far off from asking Siri to create a shortcut using Apple Intelligence to make a shortcut that uses Apple Intelligence! 😅

 

[Dirty Mac]

So does that mean I can eventually ask Siri to create a shortcut using Apple Intellegence to make a shortcut that makes Siri more intelligent? 😏

 

[eifelbube]

Much more fun to write one yourself …

So, i open the fridge, point my iPhone camera to engage visual intelligence, and i’ll get a recipe whipped up using the captured leftovers? Now that would be a real shortcut!! I forgot: I need it to scan the best-by dates … 😊

 

[klasma]

We're not far off from asking Siri to create a shortcut using Apple Intelligence to make a shortcut that uses Apple Intelligence! 😅

It's shortcuts all the way down.

 

[gaximus]

I love shortcuts, and use them for everything. But most of these new things, Siri should just be able to handle. I shouldn’t have to create a shortcut to find out if a move has been released, Siri should just know if I ask.

 

[HMI]

So does that mean I can eventually ask Siri to create a shortcut using Apple Intellegence to make a shortcut that makes Siri more intelligent? 😏

And from context it will know what you mean by “Dude, try harder!”

 

[adrianlondon]

I still don’t understand Shortcuts. Can I just tell it what I want now and it will create it?

No. It seems, from the screenshot above, you use existing shortcut actions to feed into an AI prompt.

I'm not sure what it offers that I'm not currently doing in iOS 18. I'm assuming a difference is that it can be done on device.

If you're interested to play in iOS 18, here's a shortcut that grabs weather info and asks Gemini to read it out to you.
https://routinehub.co/shortcut/17674/ (requires https://routinehub.co/shortcut/18664/)

 

[Ghengis LeMond]

Siri, can you provide me with a shortcut to Paris as my train is delayed?

“Sure, here’s what I found on the web: Shortcut to Paris contains adult content which is not…………”

 

[BGPL]

I can't believe they're still pushing their AI. Apple AI continues to botch text message summaries, can't imagine how they could get the big stuff right. Last week it told me a friend was thinking about playing with himself. He said nothing even close to that. Seems like they focused more on visuals in iOS 26 than real usable improvements.

 

[rooftop]

This is huge. Shortcuts is maybe the only thing keeping me on iOS.

 

[svish]

This is making the shortcuts app even better. Waiting to try out the various possibilities soon.

 

[tomtad]

What's model?

Also isn't this essentially saved prompts for a chatbot? All of these I should be able to do by just asking Siri.

 

[chfilm]

This is just so ridiculous- it feels like all of this was supposed to be under the hood Apple intelligence stuff but they couldn’t get it done so now we got this instead

 

[adrianlondon]

I can't believe they're still pushing their AI. Apple AI continues to botch text message summaries, can't imagine how they could get the big stuff right. Last week it told me a friend was thinking about playing with himself. He said nothing even close to that. Seems like they focused more on visuals in iOS 26 than real usable improvements.

Maybe that's what your friend was doing, even if they said something else 😁

 

[name99]

That's all nice, but have they actually fixed the most important on-going papercuts?
Like being able to gate a decision based on whether or not I am at home?
It's absurd that I STILL apparently can't do this in the obvious way (IF [I am not at home] ... Else ...) and all the non-obvious methods are baroque and don't work.

I don't care HOW they fscking do it -- check the WiFi, look for an AirTag, use GPS -- I just care that they DO IT and in a way that ACTUALLY WORKS.