Siri Shortcuts on iOS12

[dschima]

Hi all, I hope you're having a good week!

I've been reading about iOS 12 some more and one feature I'm intrigued by is the Siri Shortcuts.
I know there are similar apps out there like ITTT, but I'm curious as to how powerful and in depth Siri Shortcuts will be.

I have some HomePods set up in my apartment and I always thought it would be cool to automate things so that when I come home and my iPhone connects to my home network the HomePods would automatically start playing a selected playlist/station. Would this be possible with Siri Shortcuts?

Thanks!

 

[cmaier]

No.

 

[GreyOS]

It’s not really like IFTTT. Look at the Workflow app to get a good idea of what Shortcuts can do. You trigger shortcuts manually rather than through any automated trigger.

 

[gwhizkids]

The point of Siri Shortcuts is twofold (and, in reality) it’s 2 different things:


-to allow you to create a single command or even a chain of commands that you activate using your own custom Siri command, or
-allowing app developers to expose certain actions in their apps to use by Siri, much the way you can summon a ride share now or pay someone with Apple Pay Cash.

There may be IFTTT integration at the time Siri Shortcuts is released, allowing you to do what you are looking for, but it’s not there now.

 

[GreyOS]

There may be IFTTT integration at the time Siri Shortcuts is released, allowing you to do what you are looking for, but it’s not there now.

Even if IFTTT eventually provide actions within Shortcuts it won’t be able to do what OP wanted.

Shortcuts relies on manually triggering a shortcut. You can’t get a shortcut to run when you arrive home or connect to a network like OP wanted.

Edit: starting to doubt myself a bit as I’m not sure a third party app couldn’t run a shortcut. Reverse integration so to speak...

 

[gwhizkids]

Even if IFTTT eventually provide actions within Shortcuts it won’t be able to do what OP wanted.

Shortcuts relies on manually triggering a shortcut. You can’t get a shortcut to run when you arrive home or connect to a network like OP wanted.

Edit: starting to doubt myself a bit as I’m not sure a third party app couldn’t run a shortcut. Reverse integration so to speak...

Your last point is what I’m thinking of. Or location based reminders. Maybe not this iteration but eventually.

 

[cmaier]

Even if IFTTT eventually provide actions within Shortcuts it won’t be able to do what OP wanted.

Shortcuts relies on manually triggering a shortcut. You can’t get a shortcut to run when you arrive home or connect to a network like OP wanted.

Edit: starting to doubt myself a bit as I’m not sure a third party app couldn’t run a shortcut. Reverse integration so to speak...

With ifttt you could do it. Shortcuts are just like workflow. They are independent of Siri. “Siri shortcuts” refers to the fact that you can assign verbal triggers and ask Siri to launch your shortcuts (and in some cases to provide results within the Siri interface).

But you can also,trigger your shortcuts lots of other ways. Icon in a widget, share menu, etc. Just like workflow, you can trigger them via IFTTT, too.

 

[GreyOS]

But you can also,trigger your shortcuts lots of other ways.

I know.

Icon in a widget, share menu, etc.

Yes, these are all manual ways like I stated.

Just like workflow, you can trigger them via IFTTT, too.

tell me more, does this still work with Shortcuts?

edit: To be clear, I said Shortcuts is not really like IFTTT, because the key thing of IFTTT is "IF THIS THEN" whereas Shortcuts is more like just the "THAT". I said you could look at the Workflow app to see what Shortcuts can do. If you can use IFTTT to trigger Workflow, and this holds true for Shortcuts too, then that's still correct. The fact you can call into Shortcuts from another app which is triggered automatically (rather than Shortcuts itself managing those automatic triggers) is something I overlooked though- and pretty neat!

 

[cmaier]

I know.


Yes, these are all manual ways like I stated.


tell me more, does this still work with Shortcuts?

Yes. The shortcuts app is essentially identical to workflow, but with a new coat of paint and the ability to do some additional things. Anything that worked with workflow works with shortcuts.app. I’ve been playing around with it extensively, and adding support to my apps. Some neat possibilities, though I wish there were a way to pass a verbal argument from Siri to the app).

 

[gwhizkids]

IFTTT has a "Trigger IFTTT applet" action in Workflow. There is not a corresponding action in Shortcuts (yet, for the reasons we've discussed elsewhere about the APIs). However, interestingly, you can run a Workflow from Shortcuts, so I guess there is the possibility, even now, of nesting the IFTTT Trigger applet in a Workflow and invoking it from within Shortcuts. May need to give that a try...

 

[Nanotyrns]

I'm public beta so I don't have access to Shortcuts but can you set up one so that it waits for input and then you can say "Connect to HomePod" and then it continues on with the rest of the shortcut?