This morning, over on The Sweet Setup, I published a pretty hefty guide to iOS Shortcuts.
Basically, there is so much you can do with the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and iPad — especially so with iOS 13 and iPadOS. And so I wanted to create a central spot for folks to grasp the the why behind why Shortcuts is so awesome, and then also have some clear next steps for how to start building shortcuts and automations of their own.
There are links to all sorts of incredible Shortcuts resources, including examples, Shortcuts libraries, and even stuff around home automation.
I’ve found that as people start to get familiar with how Shortcuts can help them, then they start having all sorts of light-bulb moments. (And no, that’s not a HomeKit joke, but it should have been.)
For example: The gym I go to makes its members keep and scan one of those small, plastic barcode keychain things whenever you check in at the front desk. And if you forget to bring yours then they charge you $1.
But… if you have a photo of the barcode card on your phone, then that works, too.
So I snapped a photo of the barcode card, dropped that photo into its own photo album on my iPhone, and then created a location-based automation Shortcut that gets the most recent photo from that album whenever I arrive at the gym.
Which means that now, when I am walking in the door of my gym, Shortcuts has automatically pulled up the photo I need for me. So simple, but also so handy.
Anyway, you should check out the iOS Shortcuts Guide here.