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Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#31
post #25

I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.

Making this searchable for text would be the killer feature here.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#33

Podcasts in the shower: on bluetooth speaker connect, add 15 mins to the current time, set focus mode that ignores everyone until 15 mins later, resume podcasts playlist wherever it was left off. Only annoyance with this shortcut is it’ll pop up a notification to approve running the shortcut when it detects the speaker has been turned on. I have those cheap paper nfc stickers hidden in random spots around the house a…

What app are you using for shared shopping list?

Not OP but Apple’s native Reminders app supports shared lists.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#34
post #23
post #22

sort of an automation, but I install all my favorite apps with brew and then use brew again (brew upgrade && brew upgrade --cask -g) to update everything Bonus: I went the extra mile and wrote a script that bootstraps my entire setup: https://github.com/fastily/autobots/blob/master/macOS/setup/...

Friends here: https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/m...

Brew supports dumping installed things into a brewfile: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle

I was using text files before as well to manage it.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#35
post #25

I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.

Check out Rewind.ai! I used a similar app (Capturer.app) to do this automatically, and have since switched to Rewind - it's much better for my purposes.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#36
I was bored, so I used my parent's work iPhone to make a shortcut that grabs Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day, plus definitions. It's based on the one Apple pre-made, but sends notifications instead of that web preview thing. It's not automated (so my parents wouldn't know), and runs via a home screen widget.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#37
post #25

I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.

Mind posting the script? How much space do the images end up taking per day roughly?

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#38
post #35
post #25

I have a cron job taking a picture of my desktop four times per minute into a dated folder structure. It allows me to zoom back in time (days out weeks back) to figure out what I was doing at a particular time or if I was showing someone a particular bit of code or something like that.

Check out Rewind.ai! I used a similar app (Capturer.app) to do this automatically, and have since switched to Rewind - it's much better for my purposes.

But its constantly using 30% CPU... maybe the screenshot solution is lighter!

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite iOS/macOS automations?

#39
post #34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friends here: https://github.com/ickc/bootstrapping-os-environments/tree/m...

Brew supports dumping installed things into a brewfile: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-bundle I was using text files before as well to manage it.

Looks interesting for someone who wants to bootstrap only those "stores" they support, and want to write in a DSL that doesn't translate to other usage scenarios.

Don't get me wrong, it serves the general users with 4.6k stars, must be very useful for many people. But mine only serves me and serves me better than that—not that my code is better, but because I know what I need.

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