That means the three new actions for Shortcuts (that I originally shared about two weeks ago) are now available: Set Voice & Data Mode, Set Orientation Lock, and Take Screenshot.
I’ve got new pieces out explaining how to use them all, so read on for everything new this week:
🆕 NEW FROM ME THIS WEEK
My video and article on iOS 14.5, plus I’m streaming this morning – maybe even right now!
My YouTube video on iOS 14.5
I published my latest video on the new actions in iOS 14.5 and showed some new shortcuts for you to try out – check out the shortcuts in the description and try out the actions yourself if you’re updated.
My iMore article on iOS 14.5
I also published a write up on iMore of the new actions – I include step-by-step instructions showing you how to set up per-app automations for Orientation Lock if you want to do it yourself.
I wanted to fully wrap up the iCloud links issue from a few weeks ago, as I received another statement after requesting clarification on the process, saying:
“Apple has confirmed the shortcuts have been restored.”
I haven’t had any issues and have been connecting with folks in the Shortcuts community since then, so we all seem glad to be moving on and looking forward to what’s coming next.
We’ve got iOS 14.5 coming with some new actions soon, and after that we’re in the endgame ahead of WWDC this June – until then, here’s what’s new this week:
There’s a good amount of Shortcuts news this week, but there’s no pressure to learn it all right away – take what you want now and save the rest for later.
I’m putting together a bit more of a guided path through Shortcuts for folks like you soon, so absorb what sticks now and I’ll reinforce it with some good lessons down the line.
🗓 NEW THIS WEEK
One new stream, three podcast shortcuts, and a ton of new actions from Toolbox Pro:
This is the week! Once iOS 14.3 drops, millions of people will update their smartphones and suddenly be able to create their “app ideas” by adding them as shortcuts to their Home Screen.
The main change? The limitation where “custom icons always open into Shortcuts first” is now gone!
Shortcuts added to the Home Screen actually behave like you’d expect, opening into apps immediately – plus they run all the scripting actions perfectly, just like the Shortcuts widget.
Other than that, here’s what’s new in Shortcuts this week:
🎧 SHORTCUTS TO THE MAX
Apple Fitness+ comes out tomorrow, Apple’s releasing AirPods Max, and M1 Macs are still shipping out to new users every day – here’s how to take advantage of Apple’s latest updates:
This week we saw iPhones shipping, I held a few Shortcuts Live streams, and my Home Screen system is almost fully operational.
This week I’m settling into some new office gear I got after talking to Matt Galligan about ergonomics–I’m excited (and comfy)–so expect some impressions of using an iPad with a monitor next weekend.
Until then, here’s what’s new with Shortcuts from this week:
📲 QUICK SHORTCUTS FOR iOS 14.1
Apple pushed out iOS 14.1 ahead of the new iPhones shipping – and they couldn’t help but add a few new things:
Em Lazer-Walker, Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, on what she’s calling the “audio version of ARKit” in iOS 14:
They talked about this largely in context of playing movies with multi-channel surround sound, but that’s probably the least interesting application of spatial audio.
As someone who’s been working in the field for a long time — my research at the MIT Media Lab in 2015 and 2016 focused on location-based storytelling in public spaces using spatial audio — I wanted to try to give some context around why this is interesting and what it might enable.
Fascinating summary of Apple’s new Spatial Audio feature and its potential – this covers what it is, how it differs from surround sound, and goes into detailed applications for this like wayfinding, vocal content, and real-world play/gaming experiences.
If you’re looking to access one of your files by clicking on a URL instead of navigating through your Files app, you can copy a link to that file using the Share sheet on iOS.
Every year, it’s a staple in the Apple community to read Federico Viticci’s in-depth review of the latest version of iOS.
Federico has been running MacStories for years and always spends the summer drafting massive, book-length guides to the new changes that come to Apple’s iPhone and iPad software, quickly becoming the go-to place to pay attention when the new release drops.
This time, it’s very much the same, with Viticci publishing his entire review with 16 individual sections as pages (and 1 page for credits). Here’s the subhead introduction:
After years of unabated visual and functional changes, iOS 12 is Apple’s opportunity to regroup and reassess the foundation before the next big step – with one notable exception.
With the sharing feature that was in Workflow not being available in Shortcuts1, many people are resorting to sharing screenshots to show people how their shortcuts work.
Oddly, this has had a great benefit for the fledgling community – shortcuts are very visual, and a bunch of hyperlinks links on Twitter might not have had the same effect as a good photoset2:
But longer shortcuts with more than a handful of actions can’t fit onto one screen, so users have to resort to more creative options.
StitchPics
My recommendation is StitchPics, a simple but very functional app to combine photos that’s free with a $1.99 in-app purchase to add more than 8 images3.
Made by a Chinese developer, the app isn’t fully translated, the logo is somewhat inexplicably an L, and on iPad it only works in portrait orientation.
That being said, I’m definitely glad I bought it. That’s because, beyond basic auto-stitching, StitchPics has a fantastic pinch-based method of combing images that’s super reliable for getting things exactly right.
Here’s a quick example:
[videopress 6TEyzPrb]
Once it takes a guess at how to put your images together, you can slide either image up or down behind the crossover point and collapse parts you want to be hidden.
Especially with longer shortcuts where you may need to take many screenshots, it makes aligning the different actions much easier.
StitchPics is also great for getting images of complete webpages on mobile – just take screenshots as you scroll and stitch them together in the app.
Tailor
A popular alternative is Tailor, but historically I’ve found it is unreliable at parsing multiple screenshots from Workflow (and the same is true for Shortcuts). The actions just look too similar across many images and it doesn’t know how to handle it.
Tailor is also free (but with a watermark removable by in-app purchase) and should work fine for simpler shortcuts. However, it is only available for iPhone.
That’s why I’ve been using StitchPics – it ain’t pretty, but it gets the job done, and a bit better, on both my devices.
I don’t know if it’s temporarily removed or gone for good, but boy am I hoping for the former not the latter. ↩
Awesome work Ben! And also wow, almost 7,000 people liked a good automation joke (even if it’s mostly for the Harry Potter). ↩
Plus you can add your own watermarks, change it to a custom size, cut off the top or bottom, leave blank spaces, or change the color of the fonts in the app. ↩
