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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

#131

Post by twohearted »

criddell wrote: post #119
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 made one just for fun to see how they work. I say "Siri, record my weight" and the iPad response "Sure, how much do you weigh?" I say the number and it gets appended to a Google Docs spreadsheet with the current date. The next step that I never finished was to have Google Docs generate a graph and mail it to me every month.

I did the same thing but it just records it directly into Apple's Health app. Then you get the graphs for free!

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#133

Post by dkokelley »

m3kw9 wrote: post #129

Idea: Create shortcut to track your car parked location when you disconnect from car play

This already happens pretty well with Apple Maps. (I think Google Maps does something similar too.) You just have to check the map for your parked car’s location.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#134

Post by MaysonL »

extrapickles wrote: post #118
kstrauser wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be perfectly happy to receive a popup that an automation had just run. Also, Apple has been pushing for self-adjusting notification preferences. Imagine a popup like: "The shortcut 'Foo' wants to run. Do you want to allow it? - Never - Not this time - Run once - Always" Put an icon next to each shortcut showing whether it's always (or never) allowed, and it seems like the problem would be largely solved witho…

The malicious person would then click "Always Allow" while they are setting up the shortcut. It might be better if it worked like the location/bluetooth prompt, where some time later, it would prompt you if you still wanted that action to occur.

Make the allow and always allow options require Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode…

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#135

Post by somehnguy »

m0zg wrote: post #123

Still no way to turn off my coffee machine half an hour after I turn it on. Seems like such an obvious and useful thing to do, and yet nobody has this feature. This, to me, suggests that nobody is seriously using home automation.

Can you expand on your use case?

My cheapish drip coffee maker ($35) has both programmable start-brewing-at-time and turn-off-x-minutes-after-brewing functionality. Presumably you would need to physically be near the coffee machine to use it anyway. So I just don't understand why you would want this to be controlled via an automation app.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#136

Post by extrapickles »

MaysonL wrote: post #134
extrapickles wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The malicious person would then click "Always Allow" while they are setting up the shortcut. It might be better if it worked like the location/bluetooth prompt, where some time later, it would prompt you if you still wanted that action to occur.

Make the allow and always allow options require Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode…

You don't need them to authenticate again, as the phone would be already unlocked.

What you want to do is periodically (at a random time each time) ask the user if they still want it to do the privacy sensitive action still. This way, it vastly increases the chances of detection if the action was added by a third party.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#137

Post by chrischen »

snotrockets wrote: post #109
chrischen wrote: post #81

I tried to have it launch spotify when Airpods were connected, but found only Apple music supported. I’ve always wondered, is the lack of Spotify support in Siri, Shortcuts, due to Spotify or due to Apple blocking them?

Search for "Launch", choose "Open App" in the actions category, pick Spotify.

I'm able to also launch Spotify with by opening a spotify URL using the actions, but can't get it to auto-play.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#138

Post by rahoulb »

rogy wrote: post #76
rahoulb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checkout Federico Viticci at MacStories - he's been using Shortcuts and Workflow before it to automate his entire iPad based life. Some of the stuff he gets it to do is amazing.

Any links? Googling seems to just give me a list of random shortcuts rather than any discussion on how he uses them

As well as leo-tada's links, this is a good article on how Federico uses the iPad as his primary computer (including how Workflow/Shortcuts is essential to that) - although this predates iPadOS

https://www.macstories.net/stories/beyond-the-tablet/8/#cont...

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#139

Post by skinnymuch »

philo23 wrote: post #23
adamjcooper wrote: post #5

I've been looking forward to this feature, but I must say I'm pretty disappointed that most of the personal automations still require a manual approval before they will execute. For example, I can schedule a particular shortcut to always run at a specific time. When that time comes, however, my phone will display a notification which I must physically tap to execute the automation. If I miss the notification, nothing…

I've heard quite a few times now that some of the reasons these automations aren't completely automatic is to avoid them being abused by people with bad intentions. Say for example someone setting one up on someone else's phone (without their knowledge) to run every X minutes and using it to track someone's location, without them ever knowing about it. I'm not entirely sure that's the real reason behind these notific…

I agree with one of the replies that a pop up of some sort saying a shortcut has run is good.

They could also do what Gmail and possibly others do when forwarding is added. An obnoxious red colored warning at top of Gmail for 7 days about new forwarding. iOS could do that in some fashion.

Re: Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts

#140

Post by skinnymuch »

heavymark wrote: post #14
adamjcooper wrote: post #5

I've been looking forward to this feature, but I must say I'm pretty disappointed that most of the personal automations still require a manual approval before they will execute. For example, I can schedule a particular shortcut to always run at a specific time. When that time comes, however, my phone will display a notification which I must physically tap to execute the automation. If I miss the notification, nothing…

Ah, just wrote a flattering post here on it, but wasn't aware it still had the manual approval issue which is unfortunate. I understand it for some things like When I arrive home, since otherwise when I'm outside running loops by house, each time I come by the house it would open the garage which wouldn't be good, but so many other cases where manual approval seems odd, and at least should be able to approve with wit…

Foursquare third party clients during its hey day that did auto check-in would have a cooling off period of X minutes or hours not to check-in to same location again.

Apple could do something like that. Probably a bit more sophisticated.

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