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Shortcuts app is now in Beta

QuarterSwede said:
Yeah. You can almost literally do anything. Siri went from a lot dumber than the competition to completely leapfrogging them. It’s now only limited by ones imagination.
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I just kinda find that this is not what assistants should be about. I shouldn’t have to create 30 workflows until my assistant can do what I need it to.

That’s also because there will often be that one time that I would need it to do something I haven’t set up and we all know Siri is too dumb to do that on its own at the moment.

If there would be a shortcut shop/marketplace where people can buy premade shortcuts (complicated ones with embedded code or something) then that might slightly help.

I see shortcuts as a pacifier, a compromise until Apple can improve the actual “AI”. Unless I’m missing something here..?
 
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j-a-x said:
I got my invite today and accepted it. I had no idea an Apple "Workflows" app already existed until yesterday. This is basically the same with a new name, correct? It is indeed very useful but does anybody know how it is different from Workflows?
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Workflow was an app developed by a third-party that was acquired by Apple, along with the team behind it, and has continued to receive updates under Apple’s ownership. Shortcuts looks to be very similar so far in a very good way. Shortcuts appears to a first-party implementation of the Workflows idea. We’re seeing more actions that have to do with the system and Apple’s own apps, some new things like the previously mentioned ability to run JavaScript on a webpage, and of course the main addition of Siri integration and interaction. Basically, it’s Workflow, but better, and should only continue to get better and more powerful from here.

Also, as for those of you arguing that this isn’t the end-all be-all solution for fixing Siri’s current issues, I agree. I don’t think many people are arguing that this is. It is however a really cool, potentially really powerful feature set that will give every iPhone user, and especially power users, a lot more control over how they interact with their phone and with Siri. I’m trying not to think of this as Apple trying to fix all of Siri’s problems. I get that people are arguing they should fix the issues before extending the platform but you have to remember that most of this is coming out of Apple acquiring a team that was already working on this stuff. They can be and hopefully still are working hard on making Siri a better assistant in general. It’s just my own opinion but I think that there’s definitely room for both things to be happening.
 
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atton said:
I just kinda find that this is not what assistants should be about. I shouldn’t have to create 30 workflows until my assistant can do what I need it to.

That’s also because there will often be that one time that I would need it to do something I haven’t set up and we all know Siri is too dumb to do that on its own at the moment.

If there would be a shortcut shop/marketplace where people can buy premade shortcuts (complicated ones with embedded code or something) then that might slightly help.

I see shortcuts as a pacifier, a compromise until Apple can improve the actual “AI”. Unless I’m missing something here..?
Click to expand...
You have to train a human assistant if they are to be any good don’t you? You can’t expect a computer to figure out that when you say “open the pod bay doors” that that means to open the garage and turn on the lights in the house. You have to train it. Siri Shortcuts is a step in that direction because you can do just that with it. AI just isn’t algorithmically smart enough yet to train by voice. None of the AI systems are anywhere near as intelligent as a toddler holistically.

Personally, I think they should allow users to correct Siri. Enough corrections and it will change how it says something or how it does something. The issue with this is that it can be gamed (and there are plenty of bored morons who would for kicks). So the problem becomes that it isn’t smart enough to know when a trick is being played on it.

As much as people think we’re there with AI, we flat out aren’t and we won’t be for quite a while.

So I guess to answer your thought, I think we agree but I believe that when AI is smart enough to converse with us enough to be truly useful most of the time, we’ll still have to train it the way we like things done or how we want something done.
 
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pmostoff said:
Workflow was an app developed by a third-party that was acquired by Apple, along with the team behind it, and has continued to receive updates under Apple’s ownership. Shortcuts looks to be very similar so far in a very good way. Shortcuts appears to a first-party implementation of the Workflows idea. We’re seeing more actions that have to do with the system and Apple’s own apps, some new things like the previously mentioned ability to run JavaScript on a webpage, and of course the main addition of Siri integration and interaction. Basically, it’s Workflow, but better, and should only continue to get better and more powerful from here.

On another note, is anyone else having issues assigning custom phrases? It’s recording what I’m saying but never seeming to finish the processing part and actually setting the phrase.
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Very insightful reply. Thanks.
 
j-a-x said:
I got my invite today and accepted it. I had no idea an Apple "Workflows" app already existed until yesterday. This is basically the same with a new name, correct? It is indeed very useful but does anybody know how it is different from Workflows?
Click to expand...

I’m in

To answer your question about the differences: Workflow did as much as it could without being able to access the system level. Shortcuts has gained that access, as I understand it, to some extent.
 
Been playing around with Shortcuts and have a question. I set up a text to my daughter, set up a Siri shortcut, but when it executed it didn’t send the text, it just bounced it to the actual text as if I wanted to edit it. How would you get the text to actually send the way that they did at WWDC either in shortcuts or in Workflow?
 
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dsr2 said:
Been playing around with Shortcuts and have a question. I set up a text to my daughter, set up a Siri shortcut, but when it executed it didn’t send the text, it just bounced it to the actual text as if I wanted to edit it. How would you get the text to actually send the way that they did at WWDC either in shortcuts or in Workflow?
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This might help

https://apple.news/A25QSFRG7QQSPvPTI8yBapA

Siri has suggested sending a text that I send frequently to me, but since I don’t have the app I can’t dig around and figure out how it works yet.
 
Does it make sense to set up a thread to share shortcuts and the overall experience? Or are we good just keeping this thread going?

(Posting this in the other active thread as well)
 
QuarterSwede said:
You have to train a human assistant if they are to be any good don’t you? You can’t expect a computer to figure out that when you say “open the pod bay doors” that that means to open the garage and turn on the lights in the house. You have to train it. Siri Shortcuts is a step in that direction because you can do just that with it. AI just isn’t algorithmically smart enough yet to train by voice. None of the AI systems are anywhere near as intelligent as a toddler holistically.

Personally, I think they should allow users to correct Siri. Enough corrections and it will change how it says something or how it does something. The issue with this is that it can be gamed (and there are plenty of bored morons who would for kicks). So the problem becomes that it isn’t smart enough to know when a trick is being played on it.

As much as people think we’re there with AI, we flat out aren’t and we won’t be for quite a while.

So I guess to answer your thought, I think we agree but I believe that when AI is smart enough to converse with us enough to be truly useful most of the time, we’ll still have to train it the way we like things done or how we want something done.
Click to expand...

To add to this that you briefly mentioned. Having an AI that can answer questions is fun, having a voice controlled assistant that does very personal individual tasks is much more powerful. That is an AI that does what "you" want.

There is also two parts to shortcuts. One part is the shortcuts app where you can create very powerful custom workflows. The second part is the one catered to the mainstream and that's the suggested shortcuts. The more intent triggers app developers add to their apps the more powerful this will become. The more intents they add the more Siri can see and understand what it is you are doing in that app and will then make a shortcut for you and add it to your lock screen at the right time etc.

If shortcuts works exactly as workflow then you can share shortcuts with others and download new ones in the gallery.
 
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can anyone post a screenshot of what the page looks like when you actually click on the app? What are some of the siri shortcut options they give you to choose from?
 
Is anyone else having issues assigning custom phrases? It’s recording what I’m saying and displaying it as text but never seeming to finish the processing or something. I’ve seen this listed in the iOS beta thread (in relation to the shortcut suggestions in the settings app) as being an issue involving not being able to press the ‘Done’ button. Seems to be the same issue I’m having even though the latest release notes suggest this was fixed in beta 3.
 
pmostoff said:
Is anyone else having issues assigning custom phrases? It’s recording what I’m saying and displaying it as text but never seeming to finish the processing or something. I’ve seen this listed in the iOS beta thread (in relation to the shortcut suggestions in the settings app) as being an issue involving not being able to press the ‘Done’ button. Seems to be the same issue I’m having even though the latest release notes suggest this was fixed in beta 3.
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Not to be flip, but this kind of thing is why it’s in beta and why they need feedback.

I have a problem myself with a Workflow that was imported from my own Workflow library that is supposed to take Trello lists and publish them in a single PDF that opens in iBooks. The last step never completes.
 
TheSkywalker77 said:
Sooo this’ll be in iOS 12 DB 4 and PB 3?? That seems logical.
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Maybe, and I sure hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Especially the public beta. A big part of it’s utility is in deep integration to 3rd party apps so it’s really important that devs get it now. Public beta users, and those using the dev beta without being a dev, or having a dev account, could only really test the 1st party stuff until the GM.
 
Feenician said:
Maybe, and I sure hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Especially the public beta. A big part of it’s utility is in deep integration to 3rd party apps so it’s really important that devs get it now. Public beta users, and those using the dev beta without being a dev, or having a dev account, could only really test the 1st party stuff until the GM.
Click to expand...
You do make a good point here.
 
Can you add a widget for shortcuts, like workflow? I like the idea of automation, but I don‘t want it to be a siri-only thing. I just want to tap on a button in a widget and the magic begins.
 
QuarterSwede said:
You have to train a human assistant if they are to be any good don’t you? You can’t expect a computer to figure out that when you say “open the pod bay doors” that that means to open the garage and turn on the lights in the house. You have to train it. Siri Shortcuts is a step in that direction because you can do just that with it. AI just isn’t algorithmically smart enough yet to train by voice. None of the AI systems are anywhere near as intelligent as a toddler holistically.

Personally, I think they should allow users to correct Siri. Enough corrections and it will change how it says something or how it does something. The issue with this is that it can be gamed (and there are plenty of bored morons who would for kicks). So the problem becomes that it isn’t smart enough to know when a trick is being played on it.

As much as people think we’re there with AI, we flat out aren’t and we won’t be for quite a while.

So I guess to answer your thought, I think we agree but I believe that when AI is smart enough to converse with us enough to be truly useful most of the time, we’ll still have to train it the way we like things done or how we want something done.
Click to expand...

This isn't training anything. A training set is used so that a machine can learn and/or recognize a pattern or patterns and translate that into something meaningful. A larger and more diverse training set leads to more accurate results.
Workflow and Shortcuts is a building block-like API for creating the equivalent of Skills for Alexa. Siri isn't learning how to 'Open the pod bay doors' but rather associating that phrase to a pre-constructed sequence of actions that the user has defined.

It's certainly useful, but it's more of a bandaid to make Siri appear to be smarter when the user is actually doing most of the heavy lifting in creating a new Shortcut.

And users already correct Siri - whenever you ask Siri something and are returned incorrect results leading you to ask again or in a different way, you are in fact correcting and training Siri. It would take a significantly large population to 'game' this learning process.
 
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ZEEN0j said:
To add to this that you briefly mentioned. Having an AI that can answer questions is fun, having a voice controlled assistant that does very personal individual tasks is much more powerful. That is an AI that does what "you" want.

There is also two parts to shortcuts. One part is the shortcuts app where you can create very powerful custom workflows. The second part is the one catered to the mainstream and that's the suggested shortcuts. The more intent triggers app developers add to their apps the more powerful this will become. The more intents they add the more Siri can see and understand what it is you are doing in that app and will then make a shortcut for you and add it to your lock screen at the right time etc.

If shortcuts works exactly as workflow then you can share shortcuts with others and download new ones in the gallery.
Click to expand...
I completely forgot about intents. That’s a really good point.
 
782759A7-CF7B-45BE-B43F-43F2F5F33505.png
Interesting that one does not need to be running the beta to install Shortcuts. I’m running it in iOS 11 and it says minimum requirements are iOS 9!
Screenshot attached.
[doublepost=1530945699][/doublepost]Compatibility:

C082F9BA-B761-4C53-919B-0DF611BDA178.png
 
I’m trying Shortcuts.
I think Apple miss important feature, or I can’t understand how to do... Suppose I want to run a workflow that translate a web page with Google Translator. The workflow accept in input url and it work great from share sheet, in safari. But... If I want to start it by asking Siri, I suppose that Siri “know” the first app I have in background, Safari, then get the url and execute the workflow. But it’s not working. Do you found a workaround for this or it’s a feature not implemented?
 
Natya Sadella said:
Can you add a widget for shortcuts, like workflow? I like the idea of automation, but I don‘t want it to be a siri-only thing. I just want to tap on a button in a widget and the magic begins.
Click to expand...

Yes. It does allow that. It seems so far to be Workflow with much greater access to system level functionality.
 
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