The Shortcuts app has lengthy been certainly one of Apple’s lesser-used offerings, and that’s a shame, because it could supercharge your iPhone’s capabilities. With a single tap, you could turn in your good lights, raise the temperature on your good thermostat, and start an brisk playlist—and that’s only one example.
Like the macOS model, the mobile Shortcuts app is actually an automation tool that can combine many tasks into one motion that you launch with a faucet or a phrase to Siri. Introduced in 2018 alongside iOS 12, the app is built into the iPhone’s operating system, so you’ll discover it on considered one of your home screens or within the App Library. From the app’s Shortcuts tab, you can start manually building your own shortcut, or install a prebuilt one from the integrated shortcut gallery or the online.
1. Get yourself within the temper to focus
The Reading Mode shortcut starts by asking you the way long you’d prefer to learn for. David Nield
A good way to begin utilizing Shortcuts is to install one made by someone else—you can all the time open the software as much as see how it works and adapt it to your needs if essential. Go to the Gallery tab in the app, search for a shortcut called Reading Mode, and set up it by tapping the plus icon on the shortcut’s thumbnail.
Reading Mode is a good example of how shortcuts combine a number of actions: It turns on Do Not Disturb, switches to dark mode, opens your studying app of choice and even begins the Apple Music playlist you specify. Tap the three dots on the shortcut entry as soon as it’s put in to customize any of these actions.
2. Edit pictures in batches
Shortcuts can rapidly apply the same edits to a quantity of images. David Nield
As you get more confident with Shortcuts, you can begin constructing your own—it helps to consider tasks and teams of actions you do repeatedly in your phone. To create a shortcut from the Shortcuts tab, faucet the plus icon within the top right nook and hit Add Action to get began.
[Related: Edit gorgeous photos right on your phone]
If you want to, say, automate a sequence of photograph edits you do repeatedly, select Apps, Photos, then Select Photos. From the All Actions listing, decide Resize Image as the following action, and enter the desired dimension. The ultimate motion is Save to Photo Album. Tap Done to save lots of your shortcut.
That’s a fundamental instance, but there are lots of different image enhancing actions available, including the power to take away backgrounds and rotate images, so you’ll find a way to mix them as you want.
3. Use ChatGPT with Siri
Put ChatGPT in your iPhone, with assist from Siri.
It’s difficult to avoid ChatGPT at the moment, and the AI chatbot can be used in tandem with Siri on your iPhone. First, register a free account with ChatGPT developer OpenAI, then grab an API key from its site. API (application programming interface) keys are merely identification codes that let one program (Shortcuts) work with another (ChatGPT).
With the key in hand, open the SiriGPT shortcut in your iPhone’s net browser and faucet Get Shortcut. In the Shortcuts app, choose Set Up Shortcut, paste or type in your API key, and choose Add Shortcut.
If you’d like to launch this shortcut utilizing your voice, you’ll in all probability need to rename it to something simpler—do so by urgent and holding it, then choosing Rename. Launch the shortcut with a tap or a voice command, and ChatGPT will be at your disposal.
4. Let someone know when you’ll be home
Shortcuts can text on your behalf. David Nield
One of the benefits of working shortcuts in your iPhone quite than your Mac is that it provides a means more precise fix on your location. That can come in useful for every kind of automations.
Head to the Gallery tab and search for the Home ETA shortcut. When you put in and run it, it’ll work out how long it ought to take you to drive house, after which text your estimated time of arrival to the contact of your choice.
[Related: 14 tricks for getting extra out of the underrated Apple Maps app]
Open the shortcut from the Shortcuts tab by tapping on the three dots on its entry, and you’ll have the power to easily change the address the shortcut defaults to, as well as the contact(s) who obtain the message about your ETA.
5. Look again on your day
You can select the questions and responses that can assist you mirror on your day. David Nield
If you faucet Gallery in the Shortcuts app and use the search operate, you need to find a shortcut called Reflect on the Day that does exactly what its identify suggests. You’ll be asked to reply questions about how your day has been, and you can also set targets for tomorrow.
Your responses might be stored within the Notes app, so you can track your progress over time, and the shortcut will also set reminders for the following day so that you don’t forget your goals. To edit the questions the shortcut asks you at the end of every day, open it up by tapping the three dots on its thumbnail.
