I am now really going to have to play with this!
@GreyOS Can you give me a scenario where you would like an IFTTT to work with Shortcuts? As I mentioned yesterday, I think it can be done via calling a Workflow, which still have the ability to use IFTTT applets as triggers (though I need to see if the new Shortcuts beta now allows this, too).
Not sure if we’re still on the same page with this.
Within Workflow you can add an action to a workflow which triggers an IFTTT applet. This isn’t the same as the reverse - having IFTTT trigger a worfklow on your device.
It’s been suggested by some that this is actually possible, but I’m not sure how. IFTTT offers Workflow as one of its services when looking for or building applets, but these seem to be for doing external, service based things, not running a workflow on your device.
The reason I’ve brought up IFTTT in the past is... let me start from the beginning. IFTTT offers applets that have a basic format: if A then do B. “When I enter an area, turn my LIFX lights on.” To break this example down, the IFTTT app monitors your phone location and when it enters the area it sends a message to its servers. Because you’ve given IFTTT access to your LIFX account, from there it can send the command to your lights.
What I’ve always been interested in is if IFTTT or things like it could have certain events like location changes trigger actions directly on the phone, like turning on DND or changing brightness or whatever. This seemed out of reach for various reasons such as sand boxing and lack of APIs.
On the other hand, the Workflow app has some power to do quite cool things directly on your phone, but these are all triggered manually (widgets, actions, hone screen icon etc) not through some automatic trigger or remote services. In the “if A then do B” formulation, A is always you physically tapping a button and B is the workflow.
When Shortcuts came out I initially got IFTTT and Workflow a bit confused. They’re sort of similar after all. Thinking that Shortcuts might now be more powerful and have more access to system functions given it’s first party, I wondered if it could do things like turn on DND when you enter a certain area. Whether or not DND is now an available action in Shortcuts, this was a fundamental misunderstanding where I briefly believed Workflow/Shortcuts could be triggered automatically or remotely. Nope, it’s still manual (you just get an additional manual option of a Siri command to launch it)
Now... The closest thing I’ve seen suggested as a way to automatically trigger a workflow is to use an app like Launch Center Pro. This can let you set up a location based notification and customise its action to take you to Workflow and run a specific workflow. This is cool but you still need to interact with that notification before it does anything. It’s slightly improved on setting up a location based reminder in Reminders telling you to “Run that Workflow!” - a few steps have been removed but it’s not fundamentally different. It still relies on user interaction, not 100% automatic.
I still believe this isn’t achievable. And that’s not a problem. It would be a big change to iOS. It’s just something I’m personally interested in following. Shortcuts doesn’t get us any closer to that, from what I can see.
[doublepost=1535668206][/doublepost]On a completely separate matter....
@gwhizkids, don’t suppose you saw my post in the beta 11 thread earlier today? Not sure it’s strictly relevant to the Shortcuts app, but it’s about shortcuts in general. Don’t know how common knowledge it is either but it was news to me!
Apps have had the tools to build shortcuts since iOS 8. Back then apps could start capturing a certain activity or app state for Handoff and to improve Spotlight results (eg if you viewed a restaurant in the app and the app donated this activity, if you later search that restaurant in spotlight, iOS could show that and tapping would take you back to that search.)
In iOS 12 these existing activities can now be exposed as shortcuts and suggested to you. No doubt there are additional tools available in iOS 12 to enhance all this but it’s neat that some apps already support it to some extent. I get suggestions for WhatsApp
Sorry for writing so much.
