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Shortcuts App to Get Revamp With Apple Intelligence Integration

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Apple is working on a revamped version of its Shortcuts app that features Apple Intelligence integration, reports Bloomberg.

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For anyone unfamiliar with the Shortcuts app, the tool lets users create custom workflows or actions – called shortcuts – to perform tasks automatically or with minimal interaction. Actions can include anything from sending messages to controlling smart home devices. The app emerged out of Apple's 2017 acquisition of Workflow, which was rebranded as Shortcuts the following year.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the new version that Apple is working on will let users create actions using Apple Intelligence models. In practice, this could let users create actions with the help of AI – by issuing voice commands in natural language, for example. This should make the process easier and less intimidating for casual users.

Microsoft already has Copilot+ for Windows, which does something similar. For macOS, third-party AI agents like TaskGPT aim to offer an equivalent experience, but Apple Intelligence can't yet point to a comparable AI tool in its suite of features. That's mainly because Siri has yet to leverage large language models (LLMs) – something the company is planning to rectify.

The Shortcuts app revamp was reportedly planned to be released this year, but delays could see it appear in 2026, so there's a possibility it won't feature in macOS 26 or iOS/iPadOS 26 when they launch in September.

Article Link: Shortcuts App to Get Revamp With Apple Intelligence Integration
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/02/shortcuts-app-apple-intelligence-integration/
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I’m pretty sure that around 70% of iPhone users don’t use the Shortcuts app. It should be more accessible to everyone. Ideally, you should just be able to tell Siri what you want your iPhone to do, and Siri would either guide you through it or create the shortcut automatically. That would be amazing!
 
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Kottu said:
I’m pretty sure that around 70% of iPhone users don’t use the Shortcuts app. It should be more accessible to everyone. Ideally, you should just be able to tell Siri what you want your iPhone to do, and Siri would either guide you through it or create the shortcut automatically. That would be amazing!
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be great. However, you are grossly overestimating Siri's aka "Here's what I found on the web for you" capabilities. Siri often struggles with the simplest tasks. It's beyond frustrating.
 
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Prior to the acquisition, the app was called Workflow. It was introduced as the Shortcuts app during the 2018 iPhone event.
 
Vibe coding for the masses!

More seriously, this could be useful. However, the most frequent limitation I run into with Shortcuts is that actions I want to use are simply not available in Shortcuts. A natural-language-to-shortcut converter (which current LLMs already provide to some extent) won't change that.
 
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Kottu said:
I’m pretty sure that around 70% of iPhone users don’t use the Shortcuts app. It should be more accessible to everyone. Ideally, you should just be able to tell Siri what you want your iPhone to do, and Siri would either guide you through it or create the shortcut automatically. That would be amazing!
Click to expand...
I use it for a few things. I have it switch the Watch face on my Apple Watch at night and in the morning, so that it displays large numbers at night (I don't wear my glasses when I sleep, so big numbers are the order of the day), then switching back to my daytime watch face in the morning.

I also have one for turning the lamp in the hall on when it gets dark and off again after we go to be, and the reverse in the morning, turning it on half an hour before we usually get up and turning it off when it gets light.
 
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This might be the first thing I'd allow Apple Intelligence to help me do. As long as you can look through the shortcut and see how it was done. About the only thing I use Siri for is firing off some shortcuts.
 
AI/Siri should be able to create a shortcut for users based on a prompt. Its mindboggling that Sire cannot complete basic setting changes or answer questions about iOS/MacOS since apple added AI. If they can't use AI to improve these things IN THEIR OWN SOFTWARE, how are they going to implement AI elsewhere in useful ways?
 
Kottu said:
I’m pretty sure that around 70% of iPhone users don’t use the Shortcuts app. It should be more accessible to everyone. Ideally, you should just be able to tell Siri what you want your iPhone to do, and Siri would either guide you through it or create the shortcut automatically. That would be amazing!
Click to expand...
Because right now it's super limited garbage that only works half the time.
 
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Kottu said:
I’m pretty sure that around 70% of iPhone users don’t use the Shortcuts app. It should be more accessible to everyone. Ideally, you should just be able to tell Siri what you want your iPhone to do, and Siri would either guide you through it or create the shortcut automatically. That would be amazing!
Click to expand...
I suspect that is the plan - the way AI works for IFTTT

You tell it natural language what shortcut you want it to create and it pieces it together unless it's impossible and then it tells you why it can't do it.

Not the way MacRumors have said here where you use Siri directly. It'll still be for power users as you will (eventually) use an LLM to ask Siri to do multiple things on the system at once which will eradicate the need for simple Shortcuts - but more complex automation and shortcuts will always be around and these things can get VERY big and deep and do the sort of thing you couldn't ask for in one sentence.
 
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If this makes Shortcuts more accessible, I'm all for it. I've tried getting into shortcuts more, both customising ones I find and building my own, and it's frankly kind of a nightmare. I'm fairly tech-savvy and can usually figure most stuff out, but Shortcuts is one of those things that just doesn't seem to be worth it for how painful it is to use. I'd love some sort of natural language shortcut building tool.
 
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This sounds like great news, though I do hope that there is a way to turn off Apple Intelligence for individual apps that may end up using it (to one degree or another) as well as, systemwide for true user control.
 
Never saw the point of Shortcuts, it almost exists to make up for lazy limitations in iOS that shouldn’t even be there. For example,

I had to create a shortcut to let me know my iPad had charged to 80%, because there was no way of stopping it at 80, something Apple finally addressed only with new iPad’s.

I had to create a shortcut to resize an image, because for some ridiculous reason this basic function doesn’t exist in the Photos app.

It’s certainly not user friendly either, steep learning curve for the average user.
 
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I would use shortcuts more, but the actions and conditions are extremely limited.

Siri with shortcuts? I don't have much hope for that.
 
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