iOS 27 Makes the Shortcuts App Much Less Intimidating

[spritle]

Hopefully I’ll stop 💩 my pants in abject terror every time I use Shortcuts! But probably not. 😔

 

[svish]

Looking forward to trying it. Makes it much simpler to use Shortcuts.

 

[mathieuplante]

I tried the AI function about 5 times. Some shortcuts said I had to create them manually. A few completed successfully, but didn't work at all. One kind of worked. Typical AI success rate, really.

 

[Astuces iOS]

This is certainly not AI slop. If you wanted a shortcut to perform multiple tasks, or even a complicated one, it was impossible for the average user to make unless you knew what you were doing. I wanted a simple shortcut to resize photos, but I wouldn’t have had a clue where to start making this.

Now it’s stupidly easy to use, and anyone can use it. Good luck asking your average tech-illiterate person to make this shortcut in a few seconds.

View attachment 2641272
View attachment 2641273
View attachment 2641275
View attachment 2641274

I've made this type of shortcut probably 3 years ago lmao

I understand that it can help new ones to shortcut but I don't feel that it's worth the pollution and the AI usage for that... just explore shortcuts, learn what they do and it will be better for you ! See the prices increases? Well that AI is part of it even if it's 0.1%

 

[bluecoast]

Not on the beta and keen to try this out.

This vision, is what people always expected computers to be like:

Tools that we used briefly to accomplish useful and productive things…

…Before our computers became our 2nd jobs (talking about consumer computing).

 

[LordArchie]

Was under the weather today so I spent some time "geeking out" I wanted a travel album with additional randomness. So.. I created a feature complete mobile site using POKE, all over iMessage. (even has my current location using a MCP to Tripsy) Poke was choking on images a little so I used Cloudinary to host them and create url that Poke could use. I used ChatGPT to assist in creating the prompt for Apple Shortcuts... Shortcuts got it right, even after I kept adding bits...

Here's what the shortcut does:

The shortcut is designed to make publishing travel content as effortless as sending a text message. From the iPhone Share Sheet, I select one or more photos, choose which collection they belong in (Trips, Ate This. Drank That, Laughs, or Well, Look at That), and dictate a caption. If I choose Trips, it asks whether the photos belong in an existing trip album or a new one. The shortcut automatically captures my current location, uploads the photos to Cloudinary, collects the hosted image URLs, and packages everything into a structured post. It then opens my existing iMessage conversation with Poke, creates a new message containing the completed post, and leaves it ready for me to review and send with a single tap. The goal is a complete, mobile-first publishing workflow that lets me update my travel website from anywhere in the world using only my iPhone.

Picture -> Share Sheet -> Shortcut -> iMessage all filled out -> Posted to web... Can't get much easier

 

[mikedemunck]

My shortcut where my coffeemaker is turned on when my alarm goes off in the morning is completely broken. They removed personal automations in the home app, so I seem to be unable to recreate this at the moment...

 

[rosuna]

It’s not intimidating now. It’s just crappy and unreliable.

The real problem with Shortcuts is that you have to think about a problem in advance, and think carefully about how to respond to that problem with a list of actions that Shotcuts can understand and execute correctly. Then, when the problem appears, you have to remember that you have given that problem that specific treatment and you have it prepared somewhere.

Except for repetitive tasks, it does not make practical sense. It is not a problem of mastering the Shotcuts app.

With a proper AI that controls all computer resources (like OpenClaw), something like Shotcuts doesn't make any sense (and if the AI uses something like Shotcuts to schedule tasks, I don't want to know).

 

[rosuna]

I tried the AI function about 5 times. Some shortcuts said I had to create them manually. A few completed successfully, but didn't work at all. One kind of worked. Typical AI success rate, really.

It is typical Shortcuts madness.

 

[Quasselstripper]

Shortcuts are absolutely broken in beta 2, especially the automations.

This is absolutely true and concerning. Really hoping they get this under control with the next beta.

 

[uacd]

Not a big deal honestly. If I wanted to understand how to build a shortcut I would have asked Gemini or found on forums. The app is OK for super basic stuff like batch converting RAW to JPG or HEIF to JPG but… that’s it. It is high time for Apple to evolve it to the level so it can create basic iOS apps. Since they love sandboxing, why is it a big deal? For example I want a custom Photos app without all the crap and bloat, can I ask Siri to build it for me? Probably it will need 10 more years and 10 more iPhone iterations to happen

 

[whap]

My problem with Shortcuts is that it fails in batch processing, like printing, where in my opinion it would be most useful.

 

[cjsuk]

The real problem with Shortcuts is that you have to think about a problem in advance, and think carefully about how to respond to that problem with a list of actions that Shotcuts can understand and execute correctly. Then, when the problem appears, you have to remember that you have given that problem that specific treatment and you have it prepared somewhere.

Except for repetitive tasks, it does not make practical sense. It is not a problem of mastering the Shotcuts app.

With a proper AI that controls all computer resources (like OpenClaw), something like Shotcuts doesn't make any sense (and if the AI uses something like Shotcuts to schedule tasks, I don't want to know).

I think it’s more that shortcuts is a programming language. And a visual one. And no one gets either of those. And the compromises it forces to make it a visual one makes it terrible.

OpenClaw is just a way of turning that into something usable. However it relies on interpretation of intent which is not deterministic so this will mean a lot of people shouting NO THATS NOT WHAT I MEAN.

If we can’t describe things accurately on the professional side of programming and engineering, then this is never going to work for other folk. Not unless we teach everyone formal languages for describing systems.

 

[cjsuk]

Agree. Shortcuts could be Very useful but they are more bother than they worth because of the learning curve for us ‘non-developers’.

This could be a good solution 🤞🏻

I think the learning curve would be better spent on anything else. Once you’ve written a few shortcuts (I have) you find that the solutions in there are quite nice but flakey as hell.

 

[ifxf]

Can a shortcut move mp3s from the Files to Music app?

 

[Frantisekj]

After playing about with it for a week, it’s one of my favourite features in 27, being able to ask Siri what I want in plain English is a massive improvement.

Made a shortcut to batch import photos from the Folders app and import them into the Photos app into collections, while preserving the same folder names, and then import them into those folders. Works beautifully and saved me hours of manual work.

Made another one to allow me to resize photos to either a simple small, medium, large, or enter my own custom resolution while converting it to jpeg: simple tool, and I no longer need those crappy third-party apps to do that, which are full of ads or demand a subscription.

I wonder how it will cope with some more complicated workflows.

 

[@Brett]

Shortcuts are absolutely broken in beta 2, especially the automations.

I was unsure if it was Shortcuts or my locations based services playing up. Also seeing Beta 2 being a fair bit more laggy than beta one.

 

[@Brett]

We are getting to the point of Star Trek TNG were we just tell “computer” to do something and it does it, without worrying how “computer” works.

At some point there won’t actually be all these different helper programs/apps that do various small things on the phone or computer.

You will just tell “computer” to do whatever and it gets done.

What may end up happening though is that all current OSes will become relics, as there will just be a new AI OS not encumbered by any of the existing complicated and confusing detritus

Maybe. I just don’t want that OS to be anything Google or Open AI or Meta or Anthropic for that matter. The future so many movies seemed to have warned us about seems to be coming to life. Would much prefer something f light and helpful in instead of dark and enslaved.

 

[Infuspeur]

Nice! I made loads by hand, but it got tiresome to build new ones. I use them every day. Now come on with that new Mac mini and I can play around with it!

 

[PsykX]

Now this is finally a good example where AI adds value. I thought they would do that 2 years ago.

 

[adrianlondon]

The ideas are good - I love the fact automations are now just trigger actions at the top of shortcuts (they sync, and are much easier to edit/enable etc.) and asking Siri to generate something is a good starting point.

It's not ready yet - we're only on B2.

Automations are very flaky in B2 (they worked perfectly in B1 though!) and try asking Siri to create a shortcut using the new Photo "delete album" action. Even creating one manually fails to work.

It'll get better. As someone who loves Shortcuts, I really like what iOS 27 is doing to them.

 

[CrazyMacUser]

I have tried to use the shortcuts App many times and then decided not to use it. I think the market for this App is very small (mostly geeks and people who need specific things, like work with photos, etc), but the majority of users, don't even have a clue as to why this App exists and will never use it. I think Apple should focus more on stuff that has a broader user base. Users have been begging for a better Siri for instance, why not just integrate shortcuts into Siri so we can actually tell Siri what to do within our phone and we would not need the shortcuts app.

 

[chuckles235]

I remember watching them demo this thing during a WWDC so many years ago and thinking it was going to completely change my life. I’ve used it maybe once.

 

[rooftop]

Shortcuts is the thing keeping me on ios.

 

[Radeon85]

I remember watching them demo this thing during a WWDC so many years ago and thinking it was going to completely change my life. I’ve used it maybe once.

Same, then I gave up after playing with it, as it was too complicated for anyone who doesn’t have a little bit of programming knowledge for complicated automations.

I did use it to create simple shortcuts a long time ago, but other than that I gave up. I did try using Gemini to help make one, but even that didn’t go well when Apple renames or moves something. I love using this now, now that I can just use simple English and then go in later and maybe tweak it a bit.