With iOS 27, Shortcuts Could Become What They Were Always Meant to Be

The Shortcuts app has always been an incredibly powerful automation tool for users who know what these words mean. But now it could finally become an accessible tool that unlocks its true potential for users of all types. Here’s why.

Start with customer experience and work backwards to technology

Even before Apple acquired Workflow in 2017 and turned it into Shortcuts in 2018, this app was one of the most impressive tools ever released on iOS.

This removed much of the complexity that made macOS’s excellent Automator so intimidating for some users, while preserving a level of firepower and cross-app connection that had always seemed impossible (or even forbidden) on the iPhone and iPad.

And even though Apple has continued to improve Shortcuts over the years, including its recent integration with AI models, much of its features and benefits have remained limited to a subset of users.

Once you learn how shortcuts work, and especially if you have (or develop) some familiarity with programming, you can just do magic with them. Just ask Federico Viticci and the MacStories team, along with Stephen Robles, who have spent years showing how far shortcuts can go. I couldn’t begin to describe everything I learned from them.

But as appealing as it is to believe that any regular user is just a push away from becoming the next great shortcut master, that’s never been quite true for the larger user base of iPhone, iPad, and now Mac. Which is frustrating.

But that doesn’t mean these less tech-savvy users don’t have needs beyond “turn these photos into GIFs” and “turn off the living room lights when I leave the house.” In fact, the workflows they could benefit from might be ones that even the most advanced shortcut users would struggle to create.

This is why a report of Bloomberg today made me even more excited for next month’s WWDC. Mentioning an upcoming upgrade to Shortcuts, the report noted:

The version currently in testing allows users to create shortcuts simply by describing what they want them to do. Currently, users must manually create shortcuts in the app or download them from Apple Gallery.

In the updated app, users are presented with a prompt asking: “What do you want your shortcut to do?” » accompanied by a text field to describe the request. The system then automatically creates and installs the shortcut on the device.

This question: “What do you want your shortcut to do?” is key to what Shortcuts was always meant to be: not an exercise in automation creativity (although it can be absolutely fun), but rather a solutions hub for creating tailor-made bridges between apps, files and information, in a different way for every iPhone, iPad and Mac user, regardless of technical skill.

Have an input field where users can describe, in clear language (even vocally!), the result of what they need, and then letting the shortcuts do the work to get them there, seems to be one of the finest and most elegant examples of what Steve Jobs said at WWDC 1997: “You have to start with the customer experience and work your way back to the technology.” »

In fact, it’s one of the most beautiful and elegant examples of what personal computing has always been about.

If Apple does this right, an AI-powered shortcuts app that understands what users are up to while trying doing and turning that into a working shortcut, regardless of the complexity under the hood, could finally make shortcuts as useful to regular users as they have been in a long time for those in the know.

And of course, for users who are already familiar with the app, the ceiling is about to be even higher, which is just as exciting.

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