Screenshot of a Pages shortcut from iOS showing as non-functional in Shortcuts for Mac. Right now, none of those work on the Mac, for example. Many of the native actions in the Shortcuts app utilize the same functionality as the actions did before Apple's acquisition or have appended minor additions for new features up to a year after those features were released (right now, you can't add Tags to Reminders, despite it coming out in iOS 15).Īpple's suite of apps like Pages, Keynote, and Numbers have added minimal actions that open documents or add user-activated actions for things like templates and new documents, but you can't do anything inside those documents – these seem like they got updated a year or two ago, but Apple's teams are not actively developing new or more advanced actions for their apps each year as the Shortcuts team improves the APIs and enables new functionality. One of the most common questions I see from new users is asking why Apple's own apps don't have actions for Shortcuts (and why a seemingly random subset does). Shortcuts that work with Siri often require specific language for answering prompts, can be too easy to overfill with verbose dialog using menus and lists, and more often than not simply cannot be triggered because the shortcut name can't be recognized by Siri – I had to rename the example shortcut above multiple times just to get it to work.Īnd third-party apps that provide actions to the Shortcuts app need to be set up properly by the developer, usually only work as intended with Siri when parameter fields are left entirely blank, and the only time I've seen this communicated is inside developer videos at WWDC – I had to wrap my own head around how these actions work, and after three years it's not clear how many developers or users are using the Siri functionality. Shortcuts 2022 Changes Mac Screenshot (Image credit: iMore) Making any sort of advanced Siri shortcut means you need to use a mix of Ask For Input, Show Result, or a variety of other Scripting techniques that work one way when run from Siri and another way when not run from Siri – without in-app documentation that these even work with Siri at all. One of the biggest frustrations for most people is that Siri doesn't seem smart enough – and while you can make fairly advanced Shortcuts to improve on Siri's capabilities, they're often rigid, require fairly good knowledge of how to use Scripting actions, or rely on developer support that's also not clearly communicated to the end user. Once users get past the initial learning curves, there are a few other improvements that could be made to smooth out the path to intermediate Shortcuts work – the Siri experience needs improvement, Apple's own apps need to lead the way with innovative actions, and Shortcuts for Mac needs to round out its features. With these three features combined, I think new users of Shortcuts would have a much better time getting started – and make it much easier to keep going after the first few bumps in the road. Shortcuts is best when it abstracts problems common to other programming languages and simply removes them – changing this all could go a long way. Instead, current users have to understand the linear nature of Shortcuts, they can only see the output of the final action in the normal editing mode, and any more advanced debugging requires knowledge of Scripting actions and the best ways to show yourself what's going on. (Image credit: iMore / Apple Support on YouTube) Screenshot from an Apple Support video showing how to activate the "Step Through My Code" option in Swift Playgrounds. Swift Playgrounds has an operation called "Step Through My Code," where it slows down your program and highlights each step on the left while showing changes on the right – a debugging mode for Shortcuts that visually breaks down the flow of content through each action would allow people to actually understand what went wrong. Step-through debuggingĪnd finally, I think a significant boon for new users would be step-through debugging of what's happening in between actions so that users can figure out what's wrong. Many users will find some examples in the Gallery and check for new apps or automation suggestions, but ultimately the Gallery doesn't provide enough to keep engaged users over time.Īdding a Shortcuts wing to the App Store team could help Apple tell the story of how users should take advantage of Shortcuts, highlight new apps supporting Shortcuts (and strengthen developer relations in the process), and keep the community engaged with Shortcuts over time. Screenshot of the Shortcuts Gallery open in Shortcuts for Mac.
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