Jason and Myke explore the rumors of AI enhancements to Siri and Spotlight in the upcoming release of iOS 18.
Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/qROj1S0DAEY
Subscribe to the podcast and support the show at https://relay.fm/upgrade
Great perspectives on AI, Siri, and the potential of the Spotlight brand – something I’ve been pondering as well the last few weeks.
Also, I really love that Jason and Myke are clipping out topics into full videos on YouTube now – I noticed it was much easier to link to this idea than a full episode, given that it already has a custom title, thumbnail, description, and start/stopping point.
On Tuesday, February 27th, I went live with Rafael Conde discussing how to use multiple desktops and the Spaces feature of macOS to create custom arrangements for your workspaces.
Rafael works at Sketch, a Mac design tool, and develops his own apps as well (check out his site at Rafa.design).
On Mastodon, I saw Rafa post: “We’re sharing how we use the Desktop and how we size/position windows on our Macs on our work Slack and it’s absolute madness.”
I replied “This is extremely my shit. I always want to automate this on Mac but I’ve worked alone for so long I have no idea how people arrange their digital workspaces” and then invited him on the show.
Throughout the 2-hour stream, we discussed being a Mac person, window management, using Spaces like an iPad Home Screen, and how the Shortcuts actions for this all should come to Apple Vision Pro.
We had a great conversation overall, and by the end got into some really interesting tangents that brought the whole discussion into new territory. I’m adding chapter markers, plus plans to clip sections and cover it in future blog posts.
There are quite a few new Shortcuts actions, so I’m going to list them all first before going into detail on several of them and how they could be used within the app:
Create scheduled posts
Get, reschedule, or delete scheduled posts
Send posts with media or poll attachments
Send replies to a specified post
Get the character limit of certain accounts
Split text for threading
Get, add, modify, or delete server-side filters linked to your Mastodon accounts
Get the post or profile currently displayed in the Mona app
Open the in-app post composer or search view
Adjust settings for video autoplay
Get and set image caption (e.g., combining with a third-party caption-generating action)
Get accessibility text of accounts or posts
Take a screenshot of a Mastodon post
Great set of options for Shortcuts users – I’ll definitely be testing Mona for scheduling posts.
Eek out every percentage of iPhone battery with these 10 Shortcuts and automations! From low power mode to adjusting brightness and disabling always-on display at critical battery levels, this video is your ultimate guide to extending your iPhone’s battery life.
YouTube on TV: Opens the YouTube app on the chosen Apple TV, then opens the YouTube app on your mobile device – this lets you connect the two and manage your TV queue from your phone or iPad.
Search YouTube: Prompts you to enter a query and then opens it YouTube in Safari.
Open my Home feed: Opens YouTube.com on the web or redirects to the Home tab in the app.
Open YouTube Shorts: Opens the YouTube Shorts feed in the iOS and iPad apps, or the YouTube Shorts page on web.
Open my Subscriptions: Opens the Subscriptions tab in the YouTube app to show only videos from people you’ve followed.
Show YouTube library: Opens the link to the Library tab of YouTube, which shows your History, Watch Later, Playlists, and Liked Videos.
Open my Watch Later: Opens the deep link into the Watch Later page of the YouTube website, where I can then watch videos in picture-in-picture. Requires opening in Safari after showing page.
Browse my movies on YouTube: Opens the YouTube section for purchased movies, including films synced with Movies Anywhere.
Open my YouTube Clips: Opens your personal feed on Clips saved from YouTube videos. Use this feature to capture important ideas and give them custom titles, and have a feed of personalized clips to view again later.
Show my Liked videos: Opens the automatic playlist for Liked videos created for every YouTube account.
Open my watch history: Opens the deep link into the History section of the YouTube library page in the app.
Manage subscribed YouTube Channels: Opens the feed of channels you’ve subscribed to on YouTube – use this to directly access channels using Search, or clean up your subscriptions by removing some.
Watch in YouTube app: Redirects a web URL for a YouTube into the mobile app by replacing https:// with youtube:// in the link.
Who’s live on YouTube?: Opens the Subscriptions feed sorted as a list so you can see who’s live at the top.
YouTube TV: Turns on my living room TV, opens the YouTube app, and shows the remote control on the current device so I can navigate the interface. When run from Mac, opens YouTube in Safari in fullscreen.
In Stephen Robles’ “Inside My iPhone Setup” video on YouTube, starting at 3:15, he talks about using the Today view to store the Shortcuts widget:
Dive into my full iPhone setup tour for 2024, where I showcase customized Home and Lock Screens, Today View widgets, Shortcuts, Focus Modes, and filters for maximal productivity. If you’re curious about how to tailor your iPhone to fit your daily routine or have any setup questions, drop them below!
I agree that this is the best place to start out when using Shortcuts – it’s always available, even from the Lock Screen.
After 5 months of experimenting with the iPhone Action Button, I’ve settled on one daily use that stands out above the rest. Discover the top 3 alternate uses that almost made the cut and why simplicity won the day for my action button setup.
I mentioned this video on Clockwise this week – my usage has definitely changed. And, as a teaser, Apple is making more actions for Shortcuts in iOS 17.4 that make dynamic Action button shortcuts easier to create…
In version 1.0 of Juno, there wasn’t a way to take a YouTube URL from Play (or any other app) and instantly open it in the app. Whenever I clicked a YouTube link in a visionOS app, it would take me to Safari, with no way to redirect that video to the Juno app instead. With the new Juno URL scheme in version 1.1, this is now possible. Simply replace https:// with juno:// in a YouTube URL, and you’ll be able to watch that video in Juno rather than YouTube’s website.
But we are refined and tasteful people with our Vision Pros, and no one should edit URLs by hand to watch a YouTube video in 2024. So I’ve built two shortcuts that you can install on your Vision Pro to simplify the process of reopening those links in Juno.
The first one is a basic shortcut that you can run on YouTube.com in Safari to open the video you’re watching in Juno. To use it, just select ‘From YouTube to Juno’ in the Safari share sheet, and the video will be opened in Juno, where you can watch it with a superior interface.
The second shortcut I’ve created is one to pick from a list of videos saved in the Play app and watch the selected video in Juno. Aptly named ‘From Play to Juno’, the shortcut is a nice way to go through your Play queue on the Vision Pro and take advantage of Juno’s native YouTube UI to watch your saved videos.
A few months ago, I decided to switch to Things as my default task manager. As I shared multiple times on AppStories and MacStories Weekly, I’m really happy with my decision: not only does the design of the Things app create a more relaxed environment for me to manage my responsibilities, but Cultured Code’s embrace of Shortcuts automation has allowed me to create dozens of custom enhancements for Things.
This is the reason why I fell in love with Things: the app’s “simple” design and structure leaves room for power users to make their own functionalities by taking advantage of the app’s integration with Shortcuts. Things doesn’t have a feature you need? Just make it yourself by choosing from the large catalog of Shortcuts actions available in the app.
I previously shared an initial set of shortcuts I created for Things; I also created ThingsBox, an advanced shortcut to intelligently save tasks to the Things inbox. Since those articles, I’ve built several more shortcuts and created personal automations to script certain behaviors of Things on a daily basis. So, exclusively for Club Plus and Premier members, today I’m sharing my full collection of Things shortcuts, which have vastly improved how I manage my tasks on the iPad Pro and capture them on the iPhone.
Let’s take a look.
Great set of shortcuts that solves some of the pain in managing tasks daily in Things.
This issue is full of Apple Vision Pro links, and my return to YouTube with one unboxing video, a livestream, and a concept video – plus handy media shortcuts, a fix from Feedback, app updates you might’ve missed, and new Tim Robinson-inspired AirTag gear?
On Wednesday, February 21, I had the pleasure of joining Dan Moren as a guest along with James Thompson and Rosemary Orchard on Clockwise to talk about:
How we’d use a HomePod with a screen, Apple’s new Sports app, Vision Pro impressions after a couple weeks, and what we use our iPhone’s Action button for.
Last week, in a special livestream for members, I tested using the Apple Vision Pro developer strap to capture my perspective in real-time and share what it’s like to use spatial computing:
In this video, I’m testing how to capture, record, and stream using the Apple Vision Pro and Ecamm Live.
This method requires the Apple Developer strap, a USB-C cable (preferably extra long), and QuickTime for Mac, plus Ecamm Live and an Apple Vision Pro.
This Monday morning, I published a short concept video on YouTube built using Shortcuts and Apple Vision Pro:
This video demonstrates my concept for how Shortcuts can be used with Apple Vision Pro in visionOS 1.1 and beyond
In visionOS 1.0, Shortcuts can only open apps one-at-a-time. In the beta for 1.1, however, Open App can be used multiple times to open a set of apps.
Then, with Shortcuts, you can set up a folder for different contexts in your home. For this video, I’ve done just that – here are the apps I used in the video:
Open Studio apps: Widgetsmith, Fantastical, Freeform, Music, and Photos.
Open Living Room apps: Books, Home, Calendar, Podcasts, News, Streaks, and Structured.
Open TV apps: Letterboxd, TV Forecast, Fandango, IMDB, and a menu choosing between TV, Disney, Amazon Prime, MAX, Plex, or Juno.
To film the video, I first opened all the apps, placed them in position, and then use Hide All Other Apps to close them all.
What you see in the video is me running each shortcut and opening the already-running apps one-by-one.
Beyond visionOS 1.1, Apple needs to add a way to pin apps to specific locations – I propose the Find Windows, Move Windows, and Resize Windows from macOS get added to visionOS. Perhaps there’s also a tie-in with the Rooms from the Home app?
Open Studio apps: Opens a set of apps designed for everyday use in the studio – includes Widgetsmith, Fantastical, Freeform, Music, and Photos.
Open Music Room apps: Opens a set of apps designed for everyday use in the music area of my family room – includes the MusicHarbor, MusicBox, and Ultimate Guitar Tabs apps.
Open Video Game apps: Opens a set of apps designed for everyday use in the family room with a game console – includes Twitch, GameTrack, Xbox, Discord, and Telegram.
Open Living Room apps: Opens a set of apps designed for everyday use in the living room – includes Books, Home, Calendar, Podcasts, News, Streaks, and Structured.
Open TV apps: Opens a set of apps designed for everyday use near your living room couch – includes Letterboxd, TV Forecast, Fandango, IMDB, and a menu choosing between TV, Disney, Amazon Prime, MAX, Plex, or Juno.
Note: these shortcuts require visionOS 1.1, which is, as of publishing, in beta – that means it requires a developer or public beta installed on your Apple Vision Pro to work as intended.
Second note: Be sure to read the description of my concept video to understand how these work – these shortcuts won’t place your apps for you, but will reopen them in the same place once closed (assuming you haven’t reset your position).
Hello brands, businesses, and developers – I’m excited to announce that my work is now open for sponsorship opportunities, starting with YouTube!
If you’re a brand or business looking to connect with a passionate audience through high-quality media, let’s talk! Whether it’s through product reviews, sponsored content, or more unique collaborations, let’s explore how we can work together.
To register your company’s interest, fill out this form – and if you’re particularly interested in being first in this process, feel free to reach out directly.
Thank you for your support, and I look forward to sharing about the fun new projects this will enable.
Last week, I shared a great set of apps for Apple Vision Pro from developers who shared their links on Threads.
However, since I am apparently somewhat blending reality and spatial computing, I apparently forgot to collect the other half the people I asked – here’s more apps you can try on the headset:
Supercharge your iPhone with these 7 essential shortcuts, from instant screenshot sharing to smart hotel hacks for travelers. Plus, add convenient features to Apple Podcasts like skip ahead more than 1 minute and skip intros for podcasts.
If you find yourself creating custom buttons on the Stream Deck from Elgato, you will likely run into an issue – how do I create icons that fit my style?
Elgato helpfully provides a dedicated section for Stream Deck icons in their Marketplace, where you can install icon packs from a variety of creators across various categories – this is a great one-and-done solution to get icons at-scale.
If you’re looking for further customization, however, you might end up in that awkward gap between trying to design your own in tools like Canva or Figma, or feeling like you’d need to request an entire custom set from someone with more creative skills than yourself (this is about me).
With Button Creator, you can customize the foreground or background colors, pick a glyph using the SF Symbols library, emoji, or your own images, and even customize a text label so you don’t have to duplicate the title in the Stream Deck app.
Plus, you can save your creations as templates, making it easy to start again with the same style and have a consistent look across your icons.
So far, I’m quite happy with the customization features of Button Creator – there’s lots of control and, in most places, more than enough for what I need. I’d like to see more text styling controls, and I’d potentially also like more Gradient controls, including the option to change the rotation by a specific degree, change from linear to radial or angular, and handles to control the placement. Admittedly, that might be a lot for what’s otherwise a simple app, but it’d add a cool layer of customization – I’ve been trying to make better gradient maps in Pixelmator Pro and want to get really nice-looking icons over time.
Otherwise, Shortcuts support could take this app very far – letting me pass in parameters and output icons would be incredibly powerful, and I could programmatically create icons for my entire library in seconds. Right now I’m able to use Get My Shortcuts to export exact icons, but without any customization – combining that with Button Creator actions could let me automatically apply short titles and avoid manually adding them in the Stream Deck app, for example.
As you can guess from the name, Button Creator for Stream Deck is, well, designed pretty specifically for Stream Deck users – however, these icons can also be repurposed as Home Screen icons using the “Add to Home Screen“feature in Shortcuts on iPhone and iPad – or for any other purpose, for that matter.