I upgraded to the iOS 12 beta with hopes to play with this, but it doesn't seem like it's available yet?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!
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Is the Shortcuts app available already?
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No, but you can play around with them in settings under Siri & Search but it isn't the fully baked App that got presented in the keynote. Can play around with a few apps
Ah, just wanted to confirm that it's not something that was in plain sight but I missed. Thanks!
Use the workflow app instead. Basically the same thing, except for Siri won't talk back to you about what it did yet.
I’m going to guess this shortcuts app will be dumbed down a bit to make it easy for anyone to use it. Hopefully they keep Workflow around for those who want to do more powerful scripting/automation.
The Shortcuts app I’m hoping will be in a future beta or the full release. I don’t want a messages in the cloud and airplay 2 experience again. 
I'll be honest: I've taken a couple of brief runs at workflow. If you are a developer and think in terms of calling apps and processes to make things happen, I'm sure its a snap. If you're not wired that way, anything other than the templates and pre-made routines in the Gallery, can be pretty daunting.
I already have a fair number suggested to me by Siri (though many of those are things I could do already, it looks like). If there are a lot of suggestions (like "I see you go to the dry cleaners and get coffee every Wednesday morning before work, would you like me to set those up for you?"), it may be useful. If people have to program their own, not so much.
Since Apple acquired Workflow, I see Shortcuts as a simpler, easier to use version of it for regular users. Hopefully, Workflow itself will continue to be available for power users. I am a huge fan and use it on a daily basis. It's super powerful!
You can set up siri shortcuts with workflow now. I successfully set one up.
I hope they keep it also. Someday, I'd like to just sit down and figure it out. I'm sure it can do all sorts of awesome things. Go Blue!
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How is this different than setting up a regular workflow?
Setting up the workflow is identical. What’s new is that you can assign it to a Siri command. In my case I created a workflow that allows me to dictate a patent number, and then it goes and downloads the patent off a website. Then I assigned it to the verbal cue “get patent.” So if I say “hey siri, get patent” it prompts me for the patent number, I say the patent number, and it does its thing.
I don’t believe the shortcuts app will be that different from workflow. It will get a new coat of paint for sure, but the fundamental capabilities will likely be similar. It looks like their are new sdks that let you expose interfaces to the new app in a cleaner way than url schemes, for example, but the documentation isn’t all up yet.
Agreed. I used it for a couple simple things and it worked OK. But I’m not a programmer so a lot of it seems Greek to me.
even as a programmer, i find it weird. I wanted to receive a set of digits by voice and then prepend text (“http://patents.google.com/US”) before the digits. There may be another way to do it, but the only way I could figure it out was to create a list, put the text on the list, then put the digits on the list, then combine all the items on the list into a single string with no separator character. As a coder for 40 years, that’s a pretty convoluted way to do things.
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It should, though Spotify may have to update their app.
I'm sure there is going to be (or has been) a WWDC session on this. Can't wait to check that out!
Yes, I do have that, just that I was curious about how the Shortcuts app would work.
This might just be one of the most exciting features for me haha
I feel like this whole shortcut system could be better. Examples:
- Multiple trigger phrases per shortcut (so you can record a few natural sounding phrases for the same action without having to recreate the same shortcut over and over again)
- Factor into dynamic content: Navigate to XYZ in Google maps -> a way to extract XYZ from the request to push a parameter to the Shortcut (although no idea how to set that up).
Both of these points would allow us to essentially make Siri the smartest assistant out there. As it stands, it is very limited due to only accepting 1 static trigger phrase.
- Multiple trigger phrases per shortcut (so you can record a few natural sounding phrases for the same action without having to recreate the same shortcut over and over again)
- Factor into dynamic content: Navigate to XYZ in Google maps -> a way to extract XYZ from the request to push a parameter to the Shortcut (although no idea how to set that up).
Both of these points would allow us to essentially make Siri the smartest assistant out there. As it stands, it is very limited due to only accepting 1 static trigger phrase.
dynamic stuff isn’t a simple shortcut though- it requires natural language processing by Siri to be understood and then presented to the app in a way the app understands, which requires APIs (eg ‘this is a navigate request’). This is done through the intents stuff which is in place for messaging, voip, payments and a few other things, but I see this is quite separate to shortcuts, which is ‘dumb’ but configurable. We’ll see though!
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Won’t the shortcut app open up things like messages and calls? Afaik third party apps like workflow can’t hook into those, but an Apple app could. It could be a lot more powerful
That's the potential beauty of this: Workflow is no longer a 3rd party app!!
More apps will have hooks for the shortcuts app, but not because the shortcuts app is substantively different than workflow. It's just a function of developer support and apple internal support, now that the app is official.
Ok, well your original post seemed to make out the only difference was that Siri could initiate the workflow/shortcut so I was making that clearer if only for others. Having the ability to send a message automatically is a substantive difference for me
It’s clear that the foundations of the shortcuts app is WORKFLOW but I think what we saw was a much easier to use and not necessarily dumbed down version. Apple certainly acquired workflow for the team of devs and they said “we love this and it is the future but making it a bit more accessible for the common user”
That’s nice, but you can send a message automatically in iOS 11 with workflow already.Ok, well your original post seemed to make out the only difference was that Siri could initiate the workflow/shortcut so I was making that clearer if only for others. Having the ability to send a message automatically is a substantive difference for me
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What I saw on screen at the keynote looked identical to workflow, with a new color scheme and fonts.