Skip to main content

Siri Shortcuts Are Amazing!

Image result for siri shortcuts
When it comes to iOS 12 the promised performance improvements has been one of the biggest reasons for people to upgrade from iOS 11. With the mess that iOS 11 was for some users, iOS 12 has been a breath of fresh air. But there has been one feature that more or less flew under the radar but has proven itself to be immensely useful.

Siri Shortcuts On iOS 12
Now if you don't know what Siri Shortcuts are then you'd find yourself much more at home here. Now that you're in the know lets get on with the show. The first aspect of Siri Shortcuts that I am fascinated by is how polished it is for a generation one product. Remember this is like the 2011 Siri or the 2016 version of portrait mode. Back when they both came out they were more gimmicky than of actual value. But with time they have grown into the useful products that they are today(Yes even you Siri). The app is well designed, the scripting and coding options are exhaustive and are more than what most people will ever use. They even have a curated list of shortcuts straight from Apple right there in the Shortcuts app.

 When it comes to the Shortcuts app I've seen that you're only limited by your creativity. Taking a quick look at r/Shortcuts on reddit, You can see the amazing things that people have come up with from a Siri command to find the nearest EV plug point, to an Amazon product price history chart, to an IMDB ratings fetcher and even a Siri extension for Spotify and even Star Trek themed responses for Siri! The exhaustive list of commands that I was talking about earlier has paved the way for these amazing Shortcuts. Sure finding your way around the app might be hard at first it may take a bit of fiddling to get the shortcut to do what you want it to but as with most things in life it is rewarding.

 Image result for siri
 Another thing that has me floored is how un-gimmicky Shortcuts is. Shortcuts are a genuinely better way to get work done on your device from turning on the personal hotspot that usually takes several steps to reading a QR code. One of the best uses I have for shortcuts is to download YouTube videos right into my camera roll from the share sheet. Previously I had to side load Youtube++ onto my iPhone for this functionality and now I can do pretty much the exact same thing but minus the intrusive ads. Another great use for Siri Shortcuts that I've seen online is a Shortcut that starts to record video if you get pulled over by cops. The list goes on, a PDF converter, a pay wall bypasser, a file downloader and a gif maker. These are all amazing implementations of Siri Shortcuts.
Last but not least I'm amazed at the community that has sprung up around Siri Shortcuts. The Siri Shortcuts community has eclipsed the workflow community that predates shortcuts by about three years in a matter of months. It is this robust and creative community that came up with all of the amazing Shortcuts I talked about. 

 I'd like to draw a parallel between Siri first came out and now. People were excited and people were using Siri for the novelty aspect of it but this time around people are using Shortcuts for the novelty aspects of it as well as for the utility it offers and it is this inherent interest and third party support (Which might I add is growing by the day) is what will make Siri Shortcuts better than ever
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

So Which Is The Best Browser For Your Mac?

With all the chrome bashing that's been going on of late, It got me wondering and a bit jealous cause I was missing out on the aforementioned Chrome bashing. Does it really matter what browser you use? I mean they all fundamentally do the same thing, It turns all the ones and zeros of the internet into things that you can actually read on your screen. But as is turns out a whole lot of things have to happen for your favourite website to be displayed to you, In the shady back alleys of code that our browsers run on, It turns out that each browser does things a little bit differently. So what are our options? The Three main browsers that we'll be taking a look at today will be Safari, Firefox and Chrome.  Safari Safari is the browser that comes with your iPhone or iPad or your Mac as we are discussing in this case. It's a fast fluid responsive modern browser. It's my browser on choice. Safari a few things going for it. First off it's a first pa...
1 comment
Read more

Why Google Is About To Pay Apple $9 Billion To Do Nothing

There's a saying as old as time itself, "Its about quality not quantity" this couldn't be more true for Apple. By no stretch of the imagination does Apple dominate the smartphone market. In fact it just got passed by Huawei as the worlds second largest phone manufacturer. With such a small market share, You'd think that Apple would be at the mercy of much larger and just as established OEMs. But as with many things in the tech world Apple enjoys an advantageous position in the market and that lets them do a few things that most if not all other OEMs can't do at scale. From making a chinless phone by bending an OLED display to making $150 dollar wireless headphones that would have most likely failed had another company made them.This vantage point given to Apple by its grip on software and hardware and it's almost cult like following has made it a force to be reckoned with.I mean they're about to sell their 2 billionth iPhone , With such a huge ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why I Love The iOS Files App

iOS has long been guilty of being terrible with files, You had third party file managers that promised to give you a great files experience. But most of them fell pitifully short, some did almost come close to being good but none came close to the flexibility and power that a file explorer on Android, Windows or MacOS could ever hope to give you.That all changed with the introduction of the files app on iOS 11. Why Bother With A Files App? Apple has been talking about  replacing the PC with an iPad for quite a while now and to truly replace a PC you need a few desktop features on iOS which is primarily a mobile OS. Ask anyone and they'll tell you that the ability to manipulate files is one of the most basic things that you'd expect a computer to do. After all one of the first GUI apps was a file explorer. So it makes sense to bring over the file explorer to iOS. But you just can't port finder over...
3 comments
Read more