Shortcuts!

[solq]

This app/feature has been available for a while and I've never found any use whatsoever for it. Now and again I start it, look at what's available, close it.

This seems at odds with the Apple marketing and would point to a severe failure of my imagination.

So, what do you use it for? What am I missing?

 

[Splitrail]

This app/feature has been available for a while and I've never found any use whatsoever for it. Now and again I start it, look at what's available, close it.

This seems at odds with the Apple marketing and would point to a severe failure of my imagination.

So, what do you use it for? What am I missing?

I don't use it either.
There may be useful ideas for it, but I'm somewhat limited in creativity.
I'd like to know more what others are using it for.

 

[DeltaMac]

I would say that I don't use every possible app on my iPhone, even if those apps that Apple provides as part of a standard install.
But, there may be times that I am doing a task that involves a variety of activities, or actions. I read (in Shortcuts help) that I can combine multiple actions, and do them with only a single command, That's your shortcut. Could be one of the shortcuts that come with the app, or a shortcut that you create for your own use.
Look through the help for Shortcuts. That might result in your finding that use that you didn't know you were needing.

Reminds me of my uncle, who bought a new house, and coudn't come up with a use for the provided air conditioning. He had decided that there was no value to that, and considered it a waste of his money, and time -- refused to use the air conditioning...
Well, maybe that's off-topic, but even though you don't find a use for some random app, that does not necessarily mean that you are missing anything.

 

[solq]

I would say that I don't use every possible app on my iPhone, even if those apps that Apple provides as part of a standard install.
But, there may be times that I am doing a task that involves a variety of activities, or actions. I read (in Shortcuts help) that I can combine multiple actions, and do them with only a single command, That's your shortcut. Could be one of the shortcuts that come with the app, or a shortcut that you create for your own use.
Look through the help for Shortcuts. That might result in your finding that use that you didn't know you were needing.

Reminds me of my uncle, who bought a new house, and coudn't come up with a use for the provided air conditioning. He had decided that there was no value to that, and considered it a waste of his money, and time -- refused to use the air conditioning...
Well, maybe that's off-topic, but even though you don't find a use for some random app, that does not necessarily mean that you are missing anything.

I didn't say it's useless, quite the contrary, I'm saying I'm missing the use case and I'm more than willing to be educated. Unlike your uncle!

In this case, by example, not by moralizing. Hence my post. I looked at the help, no ideas pop out.

 

[spikeymike]

For me, I set up automations to automatically turn on low power mode when battery hits 20% and then turn off low power mode when battery hits 50% during charging.

 

[solq]

For me, I set up automations to automatically turn on low power mode when battery hits 20% and then turn off low power mode when battery hits 50% during charging.

Cool, but for me the low power mode turns automatically off when the phone considers itself sufficiently charged. I don't really want the low power mode automation, but it's an idea.

 

[iStorm]

I've got a few. Definitely requires some creativity and maybe some background in software development for that kind of mindset. Perhaps ask yourself if there's anything you do repetitively that could be automated to make things simpler. Identify a problem to fix, so to speak.

Shortcuts

1. Light switch. This turns on a light in my bedroom. I've assigned the iPhone's back tap feature to run this shortcut. I just need to double tap the back of my phone whenever I want to turn that light on or off. The shortcut first checks to see if I'm connected to my home Wi-Fi so I don't accidentally turn on the light when I'm away from home.
2. Change location access for an app. I use an app where I don't always want it to have access to my location and/or precise location. Rather than having to go through Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > App every time when I want to change it, I have this shortcut on my Home Screen to take me directly to the location services screen for that app.
3. Convert screenshots. Screenshots can take up a lot of space. A screenshot could be a 10MB PNG file or even larger. This shortcut goes through my photo library and converts all my screenshots to JPGs so they aren't taking up so much space.
4. Clean [Room]. The iRobot app has actions that can be used in shortcuts. I have created shortcuts to vacuum certain rooms/areas of my house. I just need to tell Siri to "Clean Bedroom" rather than having to go into the iRobot app and starting the job myself.

Personal Automations

1. Couple automations to turn my Apple Watch's Always On Display on in the morning and off at night.
2. Few automations to complete reminders when I close certain apps. I have a few things that I want to complete daily in certain apps and have daily reminders to alert me in the evening if I haven't completed them yet. When I close certain apps, the automation runs to see if there's an uncompleted reminder for the day. If there is, it prompts me if I completed the task. If I tap yes, it marks the reminder as complete and won't alert me later that evening. It saves me from having to go into the Reminders app to complete it myself after I complete the task, or trying to remember that I can ignore the reminder alerts later that evening.

 

[NoBoMac]

I've got a few. Definitely requires some creativity and maybe some background in software development for that kind of mindset. Perhaps ask yourself if there's anything you do repetitively that could be automated to make things simpler. Identify a problem to fix, so to speak.

This.

Add to the list of what others might want to do that I do:

• Code to switch and unswitch Watch faces depending on time of day, location, day of week, current activity. And depending on Focus turned on/off, what's on Calendar, silence/unsilence speaker on phone, set/unset Theater Mode, change day's lock screen
• Conditionally disable Silence Unknown Callers in the morning and re-enable after business day if expecting an important call
• Add Reminders to Reminders for ad-hoc OTC medications dose reminders (eg. having joint pain, so pounding aspirin/Aleve)
• Extract data from Health and generate a report
• Create backups of my Notes, Calendars, Reminders, Shortcuts on a schedule (or manually)
• Remove "repeat every" values from Calendar and Reminder entries so that when swipe to delete, does not delete all future occurrences
• Find and add missing alerts for Calendar and Reminder events (I don't want any Reminders that have no alerts, and ditto for anything in Calendar that is not all-day)
• Download from mlb.com the schedule for my favorite team and add Calendar entries for any game that might be on local TV for the next seven days
• Bring up the equalizer app for my earbuds when I turn them on
• On Mac, "gui" Shortcuts to prompt for information to pass to shell scripts that do various maintenance routines (eg. clear old data from cloud accounts, move downloaded Podcasts to external drive, pre-process photos before importing to Photos; in anticipation for Automator going away some time down the road per Apple heads up in the past)

 

[solq]

Some fascinating stuff, thank you. Nothing applies to me even remotely but it's really interesting what you guys thought of.

 

[DeltaMac]

The point is, I think, that the Shortcuts app provides a way to shorten, or streamline, many tasks that you might do on your Mac. It's particularly helpful if you have something that you do multiple times a day, or maybe some repetitious task, such as file conversion, or applying the same settings/modifications to multiple files or folders, very common in something like photo editing, etc.
But, then, there's also nothing that you are missing. If you have no multi-step, or repetitous tasks of any kind that you use your computer for, then you may continue to ignore the Shortcuts app, or anything else in macOS or iOS that you have not discovered a use fo. I, myself, choose to ignore the Music app, as I choose to listen to music using other methods that Apple doesn't care to add to macOS. I'm OK with that.

 

[solq]

The point is, I think, that the Shortcuts app provides a way to shorten, or streamline, many tasks that you might do on your Mac. It's particularly helpful if you have something that you do multiple times a day, or maybe some repetitious task, such as file conversion, or applying the same settings/modifications to multiple files or folders, very common in something like photo editing, etc.
But, then, there's also nothing that you are missing. If you have no multi-step, or repetitous tasks of any kind that you use your computer for, then you may continue to ignore the Shortcuts app, or anything else in macOS or iOS that you have not discovered a use fo. I, myself, choose to ignore the Music app, as I choose to listen to music using other methods that Apple doesn't care to add to macOS. I'm OK with that.

Yes I understand what it does. I was wondering what people do with it. I have to say, based on the answers, it doesn't seem to apply to me. But interesting.

 

[Slartibart]

additionally you can create workflows between various apps, e.g. I use it to (batch) convert sound files in Apple’s Files to mp3 using Lame encoder/python or reencoding videos using ffmpeg via a-shell.
Another simple example is to create a full battery health report on iPadOS similar to what Apple provides on iOS.

Basically you can use it to a certain limit to extend functionality of apps by ”piping” their data through other apps. This works quite comfortable especially when you use Stage Manager on an supported iPad.

 

[solq]

additionally you can create workflows between various apps, e.g. I use it to (batch) convert sound files in Apple’s Files to mp3 using Lame encoder/python or reencoding videos using ffmpeg via a-shell.
Another simple example is to create a full battery health report on iPadOS similar to what Apple provides on iOS.

Basically you can use it to a certain limit to extend functionality of apps by ”piping” their data through other apps. This works quite comfortable especially when you use Stage Manager on an supported iPad.

I don't convert files but I'm interested in this battery health report. Can you please elaborate?

What do Shortcuts have to do with Stage Manager? I admit I don't use Stage Manager, I think even the 12.9" screen is too small to lose so much real estate, but I have no idea what you mean here.

 

[Slartibart]

I don't convert files but I'm interested in this battery health report. Can you please elaborate?

From another thread - 2 links for shortcuts which report battery health on iPadOS.

What do Shortcuts have to do with Stage Manager? I admit I don't use Stage Manager, I think even the 12.9" screen is too small to lose so much real estate, but I have no idea what you mean here.

Multitasking works - sort of - for more apps. If you use a shortcut which e.g. copies data to another app which processes them and then sends the processed data back - “classically” this can happen in splitview, or the apps involved will sequentially switch and run full view. Either way, you have to wait, because background processing is… shall we say “special” (?) on iPadOS 😀
In Stage Manager each app runs in a window and - if you’re lucky¹ - nicely in the background while you surf the web, edit photos, whatever.

☕
¹ persistent background multitasking is for whatever reasons not generally available. Whether it’s restrictions on particular framework access, general design considerations, developer waiting to update, I do not know… well, probably all of it and more. E.g. image processing in non-Apple apps is often paused or stopped in the background; or if you connect via a web interface to e.g. some online programming/data processing/document setting-site, even in Safari, these processes will often pause or even stop in the background. This improves quite a bit in Stage Manager.

Stage Manager does not help with other intricacies of iPadOS which might or might not impact on a personal workflow: Apple’s Files for example has far broader access to the accessible part of the iPadOS file system then e.g. FileBrowser or File Explorer; or if you “delete” images in e.g. Photomator, RAW Power, etc. they are moved to the “Recently deleted”-folder - which is only accessible from within Apple’s Photos; Shortcuts allows only access to root settings via the URL-scheme; ² ; this list could go on and on. There are probably well thought out arguments for these - IMHO - group of annoyances which are the reason that iPadOS feels slower when doing certain things. Obviously YMMV.

² not to mention the restrictive waste land that is programming, compiling and deploying apps on iPadOS.

 

[solq]

From another thread - 2 links for shortcuts which report battery health on iPadOS.


Multitasking works - sort of - for more apps. If you use a shortcut which e.g. copies data to another app which processes them and then sends the processed data back - “classically” this can happen in splitview, or the apps involved will sequentially switch and run full view. Either way, you have to wait, because background processing is… shall we say “special” (?) on iPadOS 😀
In Stage Manager each app runs in a window and - if you’re lucky¹ - nicely in the background while you surf the web, edit photos, whatever.

☕
¹ persistent background multitasking is for whatever reasons not generally available. Whether it’s restrictions on particular framework access, general design considerations, developer waiting to update, I do not know… well, probably all of it and more. E.g. image processing in non-Apple apps is often paused or stopped in the background; or if you connect via a web interface to e.g. some online programming/data processing/document setting-site, even in Safari, these processes will often pause or even stop in the background. This improves quite a bit in Stage Manager.

Stage Manager does not help with other intricacies of iPadOS which might or might not impact on a personal workflow: Apple’s Files for example has far broader access to the accessible part of the iPadOS file system then e.g. FileBrowser or File Explorer; or if you “delete” images in e.g. Photomator, RAW Power, etc. they are moved to the “Recently deleted”-folder - which is only accessible from within Apple’s Photos; Shortcuts allows only access to root settings via the URL-scheme; ² ; this list could go on and on. There are probably well thought out arguments for these - IMHO - group of annoyances which are the reason that iPadOS feels slower when doing certain things. Obviously YMMV.

² not to mention the restrictive waste land that is programming, compiling and deploying apps on iPadOS.

With a very big upfront disclaimer here - I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert on iOS/iPadOS programming - I did look into it a while ago.

The reason for the OS behaviour that you describe is that iOS (I'll just use this name for both iPhone and iPad, as opposed to OSX/MacOS) doesn't have true multitasking and it wasn't meant to, I guess, for battery life and foreground app responsiveness reasons, due to limited RAM and CPU.

Instead, they have these background handlers (like special callbacks) that you have to register with the OS, if you want to respond for example to receiving socket data or whatever event, but it's not the same as having your app oblivious to being backgrounded and running normally, like in a desktop OS or Android. iOS is special in this regard, it stops your app fairly quickly and that's that, you need to write in dedicated support for any sort of background activity. This is essentially what used to be called "co-operative multitasking" in Windows 3.1.

I still don't get what Stage Manager has to do with Shortcuts though. I'm intrigued by you saying that you can pipe data between apps, I don't see a use case for the iPad, perhaps my apps are too self-contained. After all, I use mostly Safari, Mail, Twitch and YouTube.

 

[Slartibart]

I still don't get what Stage Manager has to do with Shortcuts though.

Only that it probably allows you to run at least three apps parallel with none paused or stopped. And that you can continue using the iPad doing whatever while other apps process things. “Classical” Splitview allows to do that for 2 apps (well, three…ish, the third app would run in slide over which impacts, depending on app, at least the experience) + PiP.

I'm intrigued by you saying that you can pipe data between apps, I don't see a use case for the iPad, perhaps my apps are too self-contained. After all, I use mostly Safari, Mail, Twitch and YouTube.

It is not “piping” like a pipe on e.g. *nix. Shortcut conveys to send and receive data between different apps - I use it to e.g. send data to a-shell, there I run a python program to process these data, save it and then use Shortcuts to move this processed data somewhere. This allows fairly easy to implement at least a few things Apple so far does not offer directly on iPadOS. Case in point: converting whatever iPadOS supported media to MP3 or battery health report using Shortcuts.

 

[J.A.K.]

My most used Shortcut is one to change my AirPods to whatever device I'm currently on. With the iPhone I use the Accessibility feature for the triple backtap which connects to the shortcut and changes the AirPod input source to the iPhone. On my iPad (and also now MBA) I have the shortcut on the widget screen. One click and a couple of seconds instead of fiddling through menus and multiple clicks.

 

[Egregius]

My most used shortcut wakes my iMac and types the password so it’s unlocked and ready to use.
I also have an automation that opens several apps when connected to carplay.
Besides that there are some automations that just send notifications to put the iPhone on the charger or reaches above 80% charge.