I use the workflow app but have only really created one workflow of my own (uploads a pic to Imgur and copies the link to clipboard). I got the rest of my workflows from the gallery and Macstories and I am guessing the majority of users will end up downloading shortcuts to play around with as well.
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Will many people use the Shortcuts app?
- Thread starter Rogifan
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Yes. I’ve got that set automatically from midnight to 7AM. Just wish I could do the same for volume and backlight but they have no ‘automatic’ setting hence my excitement about Shortcuts.
The only shortcut I’d find useful would be to switch carrier when I get home. When I leave home in a certain direction it switches to a different carrier but doesn’t revert to original one on return home. It just stays with the other one and as I have no 3G signal, I have to remember to manually change it back. I don’t even know why it changes as I have automatic selection turned off. I asked Siri to change carrier but she can’t do it.
To be honest, the main use I have for Siri is to set the timer when I’m cooking as my hands are either wet or dirty and very occasionally for directions in the car.
To be honest, the main use I have for Siri is to set the timer when I’m cooking as my hands are either wet or dirty and very occasionally for directions in the car.
Does this sound like something approachable for non-geeks/power users? Does the average non-power user even know what Workflow is?
Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith)
6/9/18, 9:35 AM
It changes the narrative around Siri quite a bit, IMO — now Siri is effectively a voice commandline for workflow actions (Shortcuts) that you can define yourself and chain together in crazy ways. Siri will get better, but users may get a lot more of what they want from iOS 12
All depends on how it’s implemented. If it’s a task-oriented building blocks approach, it could do ok. If you have to define variables, etc... it won’t fly. I think Apple’s going with the first approach, though. Think of it as Workflow Lite, but with access to system settings that even Workflow didn’t have.
This may be a first step towards an “app-less” phone ecosystem where the phone discerns your intent and fulfills it without you needing to navigate from app to app. You can still choose how the phone fulfills your intent (I.e., which music service you use), but after that, you no longer have to invoke Apple Music, Pandora or Spotify; you just tell the phone “play my weekend playlist” and it does. The balancing act will be making a seamless phone experience like this while still keeping branded app developers in the game.
I’m conflicted. I’m seeing some like the developer above totally excited and others, like the tweets below, totally pessimistic. Will these shortcuts make Siri smarter or are they just using Siri to run dumb scripts that a user has to set up?
6/9/18, 2:19 PM
@basche42 Only the very few techies are willing to spend the high upfront cost in manually creating their own scripts - which in the end still can’t perform complex context sensitive tasks
Payoff will be minimal
6/9/18, 3:33 PM
@zcichy @basche42 The problem is even after an expert level user manually creates a script. The script itself is explicit and exact
It’s not context adaptable. Therefore the payoff will be very limited use case and minuscule. But the upfront cost remains really high
Eric Young (@ericyoung_1)
6/9/18, 3:34 PM
@zcichy @basche42 It’s still executing a dumb script. The agent itself isn’t smart
Once a script is set. It’s done. The script itself isn’t smart and adaptable
6/9/18, 3:37 PM
@zcichy It’s literally addressing none of the *main* critical ones: IE *INTELLIGENCE*
It’s all explicit and manual
I’ve just finished watching the WWDC presentation on Siri shortcuts. The best way to describe this is really as 2 distinct things: first, the simplified Workflow idea , which allows you to concatenate various commands into a macro (e.g., the sequence of things you want your phone to do when you tell it you’re heading home from work [text spouse, map route, start playlist, etc...]).
The second, and to me, more interesting part is the expansion of existing Siri intents (place VOIP call, order a ride, pay someone, etc...) to pretty much all apps, if they opt in. The opt-in can be as little as allowing actions in their app to be used as building blocks in personally created shortcuts (say, ordering a cheese pizza from a local pizzeria’s app and adding that your drive home actions). Or app developers can allow Siri to start picking up patterns in your app usage and offering those actions up when it predicts you might want to use them again. For example, I frequently am driving at 8am on Tuesday mornings and stop at a particular Starbucks along my route and order the same thing. If Starbucks opts into this, after a few weeks of seeing my activity, the Starbucks app may spontaneously offer up a Siri suggestion to place my preferred order. I tap yes and that’s it. Order placed.
Other possibilities are media playback. On my drive, I almost always listen to the Podcast app. That may be surfaced as a suggestion as well.
If I change my weekly routine to driving on different days, but still want my coffee and podcast, I could then just use the Shortcuts app to build my own “driving” routine with those 2 actions built in.
The second, and to me, more interesting part is the expansion of existing Siri intents (place VOIP call, order a ride, pay someone, etc...) to pretty much all apps, if they opt in. The opt-in can be as little as allowing actions in their app to be used as building blocks in personally created shortcuts (say, ordering a cheese pizza from a local pizzeria’s app and adding that your drive home actions). Or app developers can allow Siri to start picking up patterns in your app usage and offering those actions up when it predicts you might want to use them again. For example, I frequently am driving at 8am on Tuesday mornings and stop at a particular Starbucks along my route and order the same thing. If Starbucks opts into this, after a few weeks of seeing my activity, the Starbucks app may spontaneously offer up a Siri suggestion to place my preferred order. I tap yes and that’s it. Order placed.
Other possibilities are media playback. On my drive, I almost always listen to the Podcast app. That may be surfaced as a suggestion as well.
If I change my weekly routine to driving on different days, but still want my coffee and podcast, I could then just use the Shortcuts app to build my own “driving” routine with those 2 actions built in.
I don't think it's so much about making Siri "smarter" as it is about allowing users to further customise their iOS experience.
Different people use their phones differently. "Hey Siri, I am leaving home" could perform one set of tasks on my phone and a completely different sequence of actions on yours. For instance, I imagine the same command could trigger Apple Music on my phone, spotify on your phone and launch Overcast for another user. Each playing different content.
And because all the processing is done on your phone, the data never leaves your device, in line with Apple's hard stance on privacy.
Contrast this with Google Assistant where it's the same for everyone.
I think this may be how Apple intends to compete with Google assistant. Not by trying to take them head on in an area where Google is strong in (cloud processing), but in an area where Google is weak in (on-device, because Google doesn't and can't control the hardware on which their software is installed on).
Thanks for posting! Only just heard of this app from your post, but you've already got me intrigued! Does this app do what I'm hoping it will do?...
Siri's own commands have always been pretty useless to me, but I've often wondered why they don't just let you program it yourself. (where it lets you record your voice command, and a sequence of button presses, and just uses the voice command you just recorded as the trigger for that sequence of button press commands). Pretty simple stuff, and surprised they hadn't thought of this years ago. Is it anything like this per chance?
Oh, and btw, great to meet another Prince fan on here!
Peace & B Wild, brutha!
2 posts up (#63; you may not have reached there yet), I recapped what this app can do (or, will do when they release it; its not out yet in any meaningful form). Enjoy!
It has its own app. They showed it on the keynote, it’s icon is on the home screen of the iPhone.
The Shortcut app is basically the Workflow app that Apple bought awhile back, it carries over a lot of the same UI and design. If you used Workflow, well it’s pretty basic and easy, especially if you use the templates.
Cool, I just didn't see it in the brief time I had the beta. Looking forward to giving it a shot, never used Workflow but have heard good things.
You can even output what Siri says when it runs the shortcut.
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1005815206952529923
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1005815206952529923
A few will use it regularly. For the rest, it will be a novelty that wears off pretty quickly.
I’m going to disagree with you. I think Apple's betting the corn field (but not the whole farm) on this. Expect the suggestion version of this to be very in your face. I think Apple will lean heavily on major consumer service companies to use it in their apps.
Now that I think of it, this could come in handy. I’m going to a handful of concerts this summer, so it would be cool to program Siri to give me directions and play a playlist in one command.