Why Siri Shortcuts Can Make Siri Really Useful

One of the great joys of owning an iPhone are the software updates. They can give your ageing phone new skills, they make your phone more secure and it just looks a lot more different than what it used to in most cases. Software for the most part is great but often times it often requires third party developers putting in massive amounts of time to redesign their apps for the new OS. When iOS 11 dropped Apple made it mandatory for all app developers to support the new iPhone X display on their apps. The same thing happened when the iPhone 5 debuted, Developers had to redesign their apps to run on a 4 inch display. This has often been time consuming, In fact the success of most of what Apple does depends on how much third parties have adopted it. Just imagine what the touchbar could have been had third parties actively redesigned their apps to support it. More often than not third parties are reluctant and slow to redesign their app to new standards. Apple's own first party app iMovie took a long time to support the display of the iPhone X. Which is why whats happening makes even less sense.

The Curious Case Of Siri Shortcuts

At the time of writing this the public release of iOS 12 is still 1-2 days away. Were still stuck with our buggy iOS 11 devices but the lack of iOS 12 devices out there hasn't really stopped developers from embracing Siri Shortcuts. From Google with their Google News app to Pandora to Phillips and a lot more have also added Siri  Shortcut functionalities to their respective apps. The fact that developers are rushing to support a feature that isn't even out yet is intriguing to say the least. But for the uninformed heres a quick rundown of what Siri Shortcuts is all about. Basically Siri Shortcuts lets you create a customised set of actions that you can trigger with one wake word for example, I've used the term "radiate" to turn on my wifi to turn on my bluetooth and to turn on personal hotspot all in one fell swoop. Siri Shortcuts doesn't limit you to such trivial and simple commands, the app is a programming language unto itself with if statements and loops along for the ride. This puts immense power in the hand of the user. You could automate a set of things you do every day and could encourage more people to interact with Siri on a daily basis.

It All Comes Down To User Engagement

The closest thing we've had to Siri Shortcuts in the past is the Siri SDK, an SDK that allowed third parties to integrate Siri into their apps and if you look at the apps that did integrate Siri into their apps you start to see a pattern. WhatsApp and a whole host of other texting apps , Uber and Lyft and Payment apps like Paypal all jumped in on the Siri bandwagon, Why? Adding Siri to their apps would increase user engagement and their profits. Someone would be more likely to use Uber if all he/she had to do to book a cab would be to just say "Get me an Uber" as opposed to opening up the app. Adding Siri Shortcut support has the same effect. Let's take   pandora as a great example. If you listen to pandora a lot chances are that you'd want to listen to your favourite playlist when you wake up or if you're on a run. With Siri Shortcuts you can gain access to your playlist with much more easily. When you wake up you might ask Siri to turn on your lights or to ask her what the weather is, But with Siri shortcuts now she can fetch news articles from the Google News app, with the shortcuts feature companies ca n get people to use their services more frequently. With the case of Philips it adds a whole new level to user interaction. With Philips having such a wide array of customisable lights, Siri shortcuts is the best way for users to control their lights. Siri Shortcuts is a legitimate way for apps to boost their numbers and thus it's no secret why companies are going all in.