
Apple iOS 13.1 Personal automation via Shortcuts - gshakir
https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/intro-to-personal-automation-apd690170742/ios
======
heavymark
So exciting. When Shortcuts was first announced I was thrilled since I could
think of hundreds of flows that would be amazing for my daily life to simplify
things. But quickly realized there were many limitations such as it couldn't
be run automatically at a set time, and nearly every flow I wanted it was
missing a few actions to make them fully possible. As such I used a couple but
overall didn't use it at all.

With this update, Personal Automations for me at least opens up many
possibilities by removing so many limitations. Such as now when connecting to
CarPlay you can automatically trigger workflows like opening Waze in
background for alerts, getting directions to your next even that has a
location, asking if I have kids in the car, if I say yes, play kid friendly
podcast station, if not play my other station, and so on.

There are still so much unmet potential. Core apps like Apple Podcast have so
few actions compared to third party options, which is very odd. And then other
third party apps that would so love to have certain actions offer none at all.

So hopefully with the Personal Automation people will use it more, and with
that use, Apple will offer more actions for their core apps causing more
people to use it and then eventually more third party apps to offer actions,
and then hopefully Apple offering a dedicated app store section for them for
true mass appeal. Of and of course having it available on macOS (replacing
Automator) would be wonderful since writing more complicated scripts is much
easier on the Mac.

~~~
mikestew
I think personal automation is what will finally make Shortcuts useful. Like
you, I've got a ton of flows that could benefit, but without triggers a lot of
the shortcuts were just saving me a few button presses. To me, that's just not
worth cluttering the Shortcuts UI and having one more thing to maintain.

As you point out, there's unmet potential. So many times I go to create a
shortcut, "surely they have an action for $FOO, it would be one of the first
things _I 'd_ implement", and...no. But it's getting there. Maybe not this
year, but I hold hope that Apple will keep at it and in the next year or two
this feature will start to open up.

------
adamjcooper
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 will happen. The same is true
for "When I Arrive..." and "When I Leave..." triggers. Which means, often,
I'll get a notification in the car, while I'm driving, which I must tap to
execute the automation.

I can see why Apple would want to step cautiously with consumer-based
automation, but I was really expecting that all of these new automation
triggers would fire without needing any manual approval, or at least that
there would be a way to configure them to do so.

I have read that you can use a HomePod, Apple TV, or always-plugged-in iPad as
a home hub, and my understanding is the triggers offered here will run in a
fully automated fashion. I hope to explore that at some point.

Still, I'm very happy to see the progress in Shortcuts, and I expect it will
only get better.

~~~
philo23
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 notifications, but
it does seem plausible.

~~~
kstrauser
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 without asking
much from the end user.

~~~
extrapickles
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.

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

~~~
extrapickles
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.

------
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!)

~~~
ShamelessC
I'm using IFTTT for similar functionality on my Android phone and I've never
had a problem with a task bouncing in and out of a specific location. In fact,
the location selection process only allows you to zoom in so far on the map to
prevent you from getting to specific with your geofence.

Obviously you're not going to be able to write a GPS specific enough to detect
which room you're in, but that's expected.

~~~
reaperducer
Considering the lack of accuracy in GPS, I can envision problems.

Sometimes GPS thinks I'm in my neighbor's front yard across the street, or in
my neighbor's backyard behind me, even if I'm in my bedroom.

If I stop at my neighbor's house on the way home, it could trigger an action
in my house, for example.

~~~
jdironman
Is there proximity detection besides connected SSIDs and NFC? I guess blue
tooth devices could work. I'm not sure the range on them. I like how when I
get in my car, my music automatically starts playing (bluetooth) seems like
cheao unique bluetooth devices for determining where exactly you are at could
be useful. One for the kitchen, bedroom, etc.

------
hart_russell
The iPhone Xs was my first ever iPhone. Before that I had been an Android
power user for 8 years. I installed my own custom ROMs, xposed framework,
rooted, etc.

Although I'm firmly in the iPhone camp for privacy and other reasons now, I
miss the automation provided by Tasker and the Android OS.

I used to have many useful location + time based profiles. For instance, I had
a profile for if I was at home and it was between 9pm and 7am, Do not disturb
mode would be turned on (which still allowed 'emergency' calls) and i would
switch to a dimmer screen brightness profile. If I was at work, my media
volume would be put to 0, phone would change to vibrate, etc.

The point is, many repetitive tasks were easily automated on Android and it
required ZERO interaction from my end. No shortcut button press or anything.
Smart phones should make our lives easier.

~~~
mikestew
Sooooo...a quick skim of the article indicates that personal automations can
now do what you're missing. My question is, are you complaining about
something that this article specifically addresses, saying "yea! About time!",
or...? Because your "point is" is specifically addressed by TFA.

~~~
willis936
It’s a valid complaint. I haven’t used android in 5 years and I still miss
tasker. It’s the kind of basic, important tool that any personal device should
have. It isn’t difficult to implement well. There really isn’t a good excuse
that it took so long and it is nice to finally have. Every “reason” why it
took so long is simply someone imposing their personal opinions onto a wide
range of users.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
Imposing their opinion on a wide range of developers is also a key
differentiator for Shortcuts vs Tasker.

Take a look at how many apps support Tasker vs Shortcuts:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19q_jvRRM4htT6-9QTX6m...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19q_jvRRM4htT6-9QTX6mXSjvCBwY7d6PsVcweoubQJs/edit#gid=0)
[https://airtable.com/shrNcsx3n8uUajpsW/tblv8ai4KM1YZ4LgH/viw...](https://airtable.com/shrNcsx3n8uUajpsW/tblv8ai4KM1YZ4LgH/viwWKTrvv9iQoPCCa?blocks=hide)

Now consider how much older Tasker is than Shortcuts.

Imposing a universal standard across your platform is a very effective model.

------
judah
Shortcuts is an amazing, truly underrated app. Almost anything your phone can
do, Shortcuts can do. Extremely powerful.

For fun, I created the Martin Luther Insulter shortcut[0]. Say, "Hey Siri,
have Martin Luther insult me", and it fetches the list of insulting quotes
from Martin Luther's books via GitHub, then reads the insult back to you in a
dark, slow raspy voice.

[0]: [https://shareshortcuts.com/shortcuts/725-martin-luther-
insul...](https://shareshortcuts.com/shortcuts/725-martin-luther-insult.html)

~~~
voltaireodactyl
Can't thank you enough for this.

------
codezero
Kind of neat that the way these are shared is a PNG file with appended data.
The PNG file is the icon for the Shortcut :)

Example: [https://cvws.icloud-
content.com/B/AZc9tIA45EozUwn3Zs0zZEJSUY...](https://cvws.icloud-
content.com/B/AZc9tIA45EozUwn3Zs0zZEJSUYDF/${f}?o=AkPv3CP_VY0w1Zu2JecEaam7o2Gs-5y0Kdb1rIVF5X_WEKbBWbfgD0n7seUdfmAr3g&v=1&x=3&a=CAog2q0-Z0L-xGftYglvATFw5hzCRPeoDRUu6MrKDqYIOzwSFxCv2pP21i0Yr7fv99YtIgEAUgRSUYDF&e=1569525062&k=_&fl=&r=d2d8928c-0fe9-4f9e-b92e-ea9e1a57ceba-1&ckc=com.apple.shortcuts&ckz=_defaultZone&p=33&s=g0pGb50ZInQRJr5qHah0tp_LZeQ)

~~~
conradev
The icon does not contain any of the shortcut data

~~~
codezero
I know. I mentioned that it's a PNG with appended data. Are you saying the
appended data is not the Shortcut information? I think it is.

------
crazygringo
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.

~~~
rahoulb
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.

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

~~~
leo-tada
[https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/](https://www.macstories.net/shortcuts/)

and another collections
[https://shareshortcuts.com/](https://shareshortcuts.com/)
[https://shortcutsgallery.com/](https://shortcutsgallery.com/)
[https://routinehub.co/](https://routinehub.co/)
[https://sharecuts.app/](https://sharecuts.app/)

------
ianpenney
I don't know if shortcuts included ssh key support before this update, but I
just noticed that it does now! ed25519 appears to be the default key type.

Now I can run Terraform automatically when I get home to provision some tea!
/s

~~~
DenseComet
[https://ndmckinley.github.io/terraform-provider-
dominos/](https://ndmckinley.github.io/terraform-provider-dominos/)

------
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.

~~~
Angostura
You know that Do Not disturb and Nightshft can both be scheduled to come on at
8pm without automations? (Not that I'm knocking you, if you just wanted to
tinker).

~~~
graeme
Yeah. Set white point can't be scheduled. I put in night mode because why not
run both the light reducing features at once?

Plus it's an incentive to run the shortcut. I want darkness, and run the
questions as a side effect.

------
chooseaname
> The following automations cannot be run automatically: > Arrive > Before I
> Leave > Bluetooth > Leave > Time of Day > Wi-Fi

Well that's disappointing. It isn't automation if you have to have a human
involved.

~~~
qubex
I agree with what you “mean to mean”, but surely by that definition a human
being carrying a cellphone into a designated “Arrival” zone rules out that as
being automation too?

~~~
chooseaname
But that's not what was being automated. The only part being automated what
the part that happens AFTER arrival in the designated arrival area. And
apparently, that's not being automated (well, partially).

We could go all the way up that chain till we get to the point that anything
at all is not automated. But that seems ridiculous.

------
chrischen
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?

~~~
cj
I just got Airpods. I had to sign up for Apple Music yesterday because offline
support (when the watch isn't in bluetooth range of the phone) wasn't
available with Spotify.

Not sure if this is simply a feature Spotify decided not to implement, or if
they can't implement it due to Apple Watch restrictions.

I have similar questions with the Hulu Apple TV app. Results for content in
Hulu aren't always included in Apple TV wide search, while content from other
apps is.

Apple has done a lot of good things, but they went a little over the top with
creating such a strict walled garden. (Another example is their blocking of
3rd party billing system - that's a clear example of Apple hurting the user
experience to boost their profits)

~~~
GeekyBear
The new version of WatchOS makes audio streaming to the watch a public API.

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/716/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/716/)

Spotify can implement the feature any time they like.

Similarly, Hulu has long been able to provide the search metadata needed to
integrate into Apple's universal search system, if they choose to do so.

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-
talks/508/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/508/)

~~~
cj
Perhaps one reason they don't choose to do so is that some subscribers have
different levels of access depending on the subscription tier. At least that's
my guess.

------
pbourke
Oh wow! Can this finally solve the “play the first song in Music App when
CarPlay is connected” issue?

~~~
Angostura
Yes!

I wrote an automation yesterday that simply says

When Connected to Carplay Media > Pause.

So far, it seems to do the trick. Doesn't require manual intervention.

~~~
RandallBrown
I wonder if this works with older non-carplay car audio systems. Definitely
going to try it out!

------
hprotagonist
So far my cleverest idea:

    
    
      when beorg is opened, pull this repo in working copy. 
    

maybe also:

    
    
      when carplay connects, stop playing music.

------
iamdamian
I was _hoping_ Personal Automation would solve a long-time goal of mine:
waking up to a carefully curated playlist rather than a ringtone. But it looks
like this still won't work, because it requires human interaction to kick off
the 'automation'. That's a shame, since this is something that every radio
alarm handles.

~~~
lucasverra
automation on alarm snooze => apple music playlist

------
Ididntdothis
Is it possible to write these in regular code? I am not a big fan of these
visual tools. Seems they are quite clunky compared to code.

~~~
merryMellody
With an app like Scriptable, you can indeed! This one lets you write
JavaScript code, and they added the feature to pass in parameters with iOS
13.1!

[https://scriptable.app](https://scriptable.app)

~~~
prashnts
Pythonista 3 (currently on TestFlight) is another option. I like the custom
keyboard shortcuts that it adds. It can also trigger shortcuts, I reckon.

~~~
Ididntdothis
This is interesting. I thought iOS is pretty locked down.

------
konschubert
I tried to build an automation that would send a message to my wife with my
expected time of arrival as soon as I leave work.

Unfortunately, the transit skill can only tell you the travel duration, but
doesn’t take into account departure times.

It will tell me that I need 20 minutes by train, but it’s impossible to tell
at what time the train will depart.

------
submeta
Absolutely love this. Realized it is scriptable. Managed to create notes from
templates in Bear Writer and in iA Writer, also started logging my caffeine
consumption (a predefined shortcut), log my expenses by appending to a csv
file and many more things. This is like Automator for iOS. Opens totally new
perspectives and use-cases for iOS devices.

I am having so many ideas for scripting my iPhone. Totally sold.

Been using automation tools on my Mac for quite some time. Tools like Keyboard
Maestro, Alfred App, shell scripts, Python scripts, snippet expander like
aText or Dash App. Now we get a tiny bit of this on iOS. Right direction.

------
heavymark
Another issue. When setting time of day you can choose says, but unlike Apple
Calendar or any third party calendar app like Fantastical, you can't set
custom. Such as Repeat Monday and Wednesday every 2 weeks, etc. Everytime I
get excited to use Shortcuts I see seemingly small but major issues that
prevent from creating the desired workflow, so end up giving up. Since when it
was owned by Workflow had hopes little things like that would get resolved
quickly, with Apple, assume if its not part of the first release most likely
won't be fixed until next year as a 'feature'.

------
JustinNeprati
how does one automate the resetting of Adversting Identifier every 2 mins?

~~~
somehnguy
I don't think you need to. Just enable Limit Ad Tracking:
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT205223)

------
jl6
Does this finally end the nonsense that is Dropbox being unable to stay open
and finish uploading photos? I.e. could I set it to open the Dropbox app every
ten minutes during the night?

~~~
kilroy123
Nope

------
c89X
I’m missing the “Disconnect” action for Wifi and Bluetooth. I’d like to be
able to increase text size automatically when getting in the car (based on
bluetooth connecting to the car) for improved visibility, but to undo it when
I exit the car. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be possible (yet).

------
kenips
I was hoping that I can finally change night shift intensity based on time of
day. Unfortunately night shift isn’t configurable by Shortcut yet.

~~~
pfortuny
You can change the whitepoint. Not the same, though, but something.

[https://www.iphonetricks.org/the-ios-reduce-white-point-
feat...](https://www.iphonetricks.org/the-ios-reduce-white-point-feature-dims-
your-iphone-screen-below-brightness-minimum/)

------
chrisweekly
Cool! I'm on 12.4.1 and for a while now enjoying my simple accessibility
shortcut > color filters to enable triple-click side button to toggle
greyscale vs normal color mode. Less battery usage, helps keep the device less
unnecessarily stimulating, doesn't interfere w/ sleep, and sometimes good for
random conversation ("how'd you do that?"). :)

~~~
jl6
> unnecessarily stimulating

Willie, remove all the colored chalk from the classrooms!

~~~
chrisweekly
I'm sure you were just trying to be funny, so I forgive your snark. But your
analogy is inept. I'll try riffing on it to explain why:

By default, our "smartphones" are attention-capturing entertainment devices.
Disabling notifications is one step towards regaining control and putting apps
in their place -- which is to say, tools I will leverage with intention, on my
schedule. Disabling colors is another step in that same direction. It's not
removing chalk from the classroom, it's temporarily closing the window to mute
the ice-cream truck during exams. The whole point of the triple-tap shortcut
is to make it trivial to toggle modes, so I am the only one who gets to decide
whether I'm in the library or the arcade.

------
m0zg
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.

------
pwinnski
I love that I have a shortcut set up to play my podcast and navigate to home
when I leave my office... and that it still prompts me to start it, so I can
_not_ do that when I'm actually driving to lunch with coworkers.

------
ianmobbs
Congrats, they invented Activator[0]!

[0] [https://cydia-app.com/activator/](https://cydia-app.com/activator/)

~~~
conradev
Ryan was a fantastic mentor to me and a lot of people in the jailbreak
community. His work set a high bar for what tweaks could be, and Activator in
particular spawned a small ecosystem of quick actions. I’m honored by the
comparison :)

(context: I work on Shortcuts)

~~~
ianmobbs
That's awesome to hear! Sorry if my comment came off as snarky. I was pretty
involved in the jailbreak scene back in my iPod Touch days (years and years
ago), and I'm really happy to see some of the functionality I loved then
coming to life now (in a much more polished way :))

~~~
conradev
Yeah, for sure! It didn't come off as too snarky to me. The jailbreak scene is
what made me the engineer I am today for sure :)

------
n1000
Will this finally allow me to switch WiFi and Bluetooth off (instead of just
disconnect for 24h) from the control centre?

~~~
ismailk
From the control center? No. But you can do it from the shortcuts widget when
you swipe left from the homescreen

WiFi -
[https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/a92a26177fae4bafb9c8a7b369e...](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/a92a26177fae4bafb9c8a7b369e54aa4)

Bluetooth -
[https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/7b367448c4a04b1483af4af004a...](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/7b367448c4a04b1483af4af004aa8ce8)

~~~
n1000
Oh. This is fantastic. Thank you so much!

For anyone else having issues allowing untrusted shortcuts. The toggle in the
settings only appears after running any shortcut for the first time. This is
an iOS bug apparently.

------
Phenomenit
Too bad the settings option are just accessibility options.

I just want a shortcut that turns off and on vibration when in silent mode.

------
_bxg1
When I updated to iOS 13, Shortcuts no longer listed actions for third-party
apps. Has anyone else run into this?

------
DevKoala
Great release; looking forward to the future of this feature.

My one complaint with shortcuts is that the apps have to expose an interface
of "actions" which so far is very limited for tons of apps. I want to create a
shortcut to the "user & passwords" store under "Settings", but I can't because
it isn't exposed as an action.

------
m3kw9
Idea: Create shortcut to track your car parked location when you disconnect
from car play

~~~
dkokelley
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.

------
eevilspock
I hope they add email, message and call-based triggers.

Which can also be used as a cheap RPC mechanism.

------
lostgame
+1 request for automator on iOS?

