The Shortcuts application has consistently been an incredibly robust automation resource for individuals who grasp the significance of these very terms. However, it may now finally transform into a user-friendly tool that realizes its genuine potential for a diverse range of users. Here’s the rationale.
## Focusing on the user experience and retrogressing to the technology
Even prior to Apple’s acquisition of Workflow in 2017 and its subsequent rebranding as Shortcuts in 2018, this app stood out as one of the most remarkable tools ever introduced on iOS. It simplified much of the complexity that rendered macOS’s outstanding Automator daunting to some users, all while maintaining a degree of capability and inter-application connectivity that had always seemed out of reach (or even prohibited) on the iPhone and iPad.
While Apple has consistently enhanced Shortcuts over time, including its recent incorporation of AI models, a large portion of its features and advantages has remained confined to a small group of users.
Once you grasp how Shortcuts operates, especially if you possess (or cultivate) some familiarity with programming, you can create amazing things with it. Just consult Federico Viticci and the MacStories crew, alongside Stephen Robles, who have dedicated years to demonstrating just how far Shortcuts can extend. I couldn’t begin to express the amount I’ve learned from their insights.
Yet, despite the glamorous notion that any average user is just one encouragement away from ascending to the status of a Shortcuts expert, that has historically not been the case for the broader user base of iPhone, iPad, and now Mac. This is frustrating.
However, this does not imply that these less tech-savvy users lack requirements that exceed “convert these photos into a GIF” and “turn off the living room lights when I depart from home.” Indeed, the workflows they might benefit from could be of a nature that even the most proficient Shortcuts users would find difficult to construct.
That’s why a report from Bloomberg today has made me even more enthusiastic for next month’s WWDC. When discussing an impending enhancement to Shortcuts, the report mentioned:
> The version presently in testing allows users to create shortcuts simply by articulating what they wish the shortcuts to accomplish. Currently, users are required to manually construct shortcuts within the app or download them from Apple’s collection.
> In the updated app, users will be greeted with a prompt asking, “What do you want your shortcut to do?” accompanied by a text field to detail the request. The system then automatically generates and installs the shortcut on the device.
This inquiry, “What do you want your shortcut to do?” is fundamental to what Shortcuts was always intended to be: not just an exercise in automation creativity (even though it can indeed be an enjoyable one), but a solution hub for constructing customized connections between applications, files, and information, uniquely suited for every individual iPhone, iPad, and Mac user, irrespective of their technical expertise.
Providing an input field where users can express, in everyday language (even through voice!), the outcome they need, and then having Shortcuts handle the execution to achieve that result, epitomizes one of the most beautiful and sophisticated illustrations of what Steve Jobs famously stated during WWDC 1997: “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”
In truth, that exemplifies one of the most beautiful and refined representations of what personal computing has always signified.
If Apple successfully implements this, an AI-enhanced Shortcuts application that comprehends what users are attempting to accomplish and converts that into a functioning shortcut, regardless of how intricate it may be beneath the surface, could finally render Shortcuts as beneficial to average users as it has long been to the knowledgeable ones.
And naturally, for users who are already adept with the app, the potential is about to escalate even further, which is equally thrilling.