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Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

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Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#31

Post by ubercow13 »

batmenace wrote: post #9
crazygringo wrote: post #3

Has anyone found any of these useful? I'm racking my brain for something that would benefit me, but nothing comes to mind... but I feel like I'm just lacking creativity here.

I definitely felt like that for a long time. With automation, I only have a few ones right now: One that is activated with my alarm in the morning and opens my Things agenda and the weather, and ones toggling Do not disturb when I get to/leave work. Of course, everything shortcuts can do can be done manually, but for some I think it can be worth it to automate or reduce the workload of a lot of menial tasks

Not everything could be done manually, for example injecting JS into a webpage in Safari

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#33

Post by graeme »

I started small. I have an automation that launches at 8 pm that does three things:

* Sets dark mode * Sets reduce white point * Runs a shortcut I made asking me a few questions

The questions are:

1. Will you get ready for bed? Sleep affects your next day. (I have to click yes/no) 2. Will you go brush your teeth after this? (The first step. I have to click yes/no) 3. It gives me a list of things I may want to do to wind down: a walk (based on steps), tidying, reading a book 4. Then it prompts me to look at a small diary/todo I made in the morning and comment on it. And then look at my screen time stats.

I find this helpful. And since I always want to reduce white point, this means I will automatically want to click the notification to run it.

I hopefully eventually they will have AND and OR conditions in automations. Eg if between 8:30 and 11:30 AND I open instagram, open my todo list.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#34

Post by jasongill »

graeme wrote: post #29
jasongill wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of auto-approved items seems somewhat arbitrary, but I think they had privacy concerns in mind when they made the list (although it seems stupid that you can't override those protections if you'd like). All of the ones on the "cannot be run automatically" list are things that a bad actor could do if they had your phone, like wait for a certain time of day, or move your phone to a specific location, or bring…

The NFC automation is tied to specific tags. So the thief would have to be in your house tapping a specific tag you setup.

Yes, but what if the NFC tag was on your keychain with your phone, which the attacker also had? That seems far more likely than being able to spoof a Bluetooth device that your phone had already paired with in the past (yet that one is in the list of "not automatic" choices)

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#36

Post by robk »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

Has anyone found any of these useful? I'm racking my brain for something that would benefit me, but nothing comes to mind... but I feel like I'm just lacking creativity here.

A simple shortcut to send web urls through outline.com and or archive.is is a life saver for mobile browsing particularly when EU blocking news sites are the target

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#38

Post by floatingatoll »

graeme wrote: post #33

I started small. I have an automation that launches at 8 pm that does three things: * Sets dark mode * Sets reduce white point * Runs a shortcut I made asking me a few questions The questions are: 1. Will you get ready for bed? Sleep affects your next day. (I have to click yes/no) 2. Will you go brush your teeth after this? (The first step. I have to click yes/no) 3. It gives me a list of things I may want to do to w…

On a very distantly tangential note, based on your list of questions, I wonder if you may find this pair of links very interesting:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-31-the-feltro...

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reporter-app/id779697486

I'm not suggesting you replace your steps, I just think you're more likely than average to enjoy them. If not, no worries :)

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#40

Post by m0dest »

I'd been trying to figure out why they required a user interaction for some of these. 5 out of 6 of these can be explained by debouncing.

• "Wi-Fi" and "Bluetooth" connection triggers are extremely susceptible to bouncing on and off with variable radio conditions

• "Arrive", "Leave", and "Before I Leave" are all susceptible to bouncing in and out; they combine a fuzzy location of variable precision with a point and radius

By requiring a user interaction, it makes sure that bouncing never causes the shortcut to trigger more often than desired. Apple certainly tries to debounce the event automatically, but that comes with other side effects: the trigger can be delayed significantly and unpredictably.

(As for why "Time of Day" requires a user interaction, I have yet to hear a satisfying explanation. I want my Cron!)

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