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Siri Shortcuts - page 2

Handy Shortcuts app launches alongside iOS 12

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Shortcuts app from iOS 12
Apple's new Shortcuts automation app has to be downloaded separately from iOS 12.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The full version of iOS 12 is now available for everyone. One of its cool new features is Siri Shortcuts, but those who want to automate functions on their iPhone also need to download a separate application from the App Store.

The new utility lets people create scripts that collect several actions together, then launch them with a voice command. The idea is to let you automate actions that you perform regularly.

Download iOS 12 now to make your iPhone and iPad faster

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iOS 12
iOS 12 launched on September 17.
Photo: Apple

The biggest iOS update of 2018 is finally here.

After months of beta testing, Apple finally released iOS 12 to the public, making it available as an over-the-air update. The new iPhone and iPad operating system comes with tons of new features and performance improvements that will make even older devices faster than ever. Best of all, if you have a device that can run iOS 11, iOS 12 will work on it — no problem.

Here’s how to download it.

Apple drops yet another batch of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave betas

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Photos app
The new and improved Photos app on iOS 12.
Photo: Apple

iOS and macOS developers received a fresh batch of new beta updates from Apple this morning as the company prepares to launch its new software this fall. And the general public got a new iOS beta too.

macOS Mojave beta 9 and iOS 12 beta 11 can be downloaded from the Apple developer center immediately. The updates bringing a host of bug fixes and performance improvements to the iPhone and Mac.

Use Siri Shortcuts to quickly send photos to your family

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siri shortcut share photos
Workflow Vs. Siri Shortcuts.
Photo: Cult of Mac

How do you send a photo to several of your family members? Do you compose a group message, adding all their various addresses and phone numbers manually? Do you have several existing threads, each with a different combo of family members?

Today, we’re going to see a much easier way to send a photo to multiple recipients using Siri Shortcuts (or Apple’s Workflow app). It’s so simple that it should be built in to the iPhone.

This Siri Shortcut will automatically text your commute time to your spouse

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Siri shortcuts knows how long your bus will take to get you home.
Siri knows how long your bus will take to get you home.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

This Siri Shortcut will send an iMessage to a friend, spouse or other contact telling them how long it will be until you get to their location. Once set up, all you need to do is say something simple (and easy to remember) like “Home soon.”

This shortcut uses a brand-new feature in Shortcuts beta 2.0 that allows the sending of messages in the background, without having to confirm them first. It’s a small but powerful addition. Once Apple irons out the kinks, this feature could make a huge difference in how useful Siri Shortcuts will be day to day.

iOS 12 beta 4 fixes Fortnite crashes, adds other new bugs

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notification centre iOS 12
Have you upgraded early to iOS 12?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iOS 12 users can finally enjoy Fortnite again after Apple’s latest beta fixed random game crashes.

A problem with downloading Netflix titles has also been eliminated, but a number of new bugs have been introduced with this release — including on that breaks the new Screen Time feature.

How to add your own iOS 12 Siri Shortcuts right now

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Siri
Siri Shortcuts could become super powerful.
Photo: Apple

Siri Shortcuts are the iOS way to automate actions you do over and over. The WWDC 2018 keynote gave an examples of chaining together a bunch of these actions into one shortcut — order your favorite “coffee,” and give you directions to work, or switch on the lights at home one whole hour before you get there in order to, I don’t know, waste electricity? To trigger these little automations, you just tell Siri, using a pre-chosen keyword/name.

However, you don’t alway want to put together lots of steps. Sometimes you just want Siri to carry out a single action with a Shortcut. For instance, opening up your favorite news site in Safari, or sending a message to your spouse, or viewing your most recent photos. The good news is, you can do all of these right now, even without the fancy new Siri Shortcuts app.

Get a hands-on look at watchOS 5’s new Apple Watch features

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watchOS 5
We've had time to play with the developer beta of watchOS 5, here's what's new.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

WWDC 2018 bug Cult of Mac Even if you already saw the WWDC 2018 keynote where Apple showed off watchOS 5, there are tons of features that got brushed over — and some did not get mentioned at all.

As is our duty, we installed the first developer beta of watchOS 5 and gave it a full run-through so we can show you all the new features in action. Check out the video below.

Small company claims Apple stole Shortcuts logo

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Apple Shortcuts vs. the Sift logo
Is the Apple Shortcuts logo a ripoff of this company's corporate one?
Graphic: Apple/Shift

Shortcuts is a cool feature in iOS 12 that carries out a collection on actions with a single Siri command. But a startup accuses Apple of stealing its logo.

The company’s name is Shift, and both it and the Apple Shortcuts app have logos that are stylized versions of the letter ‘s.’ Additionally, both use similar colors: blue and magenta.

Theoretical improvements: The status of Siri in iOS 12

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The iPhone's home button could be going away.
Siri should be a lot smarter.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

WWDC 2018 bug Cult of Mac In the battle of digital voice assistants, people often mock Siri for lagging behind competing products from Amazon and Google. During Monday’s WWDC 2018 keynote, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, glossed over those failings, calling Siri the “world’s most-used digital assistant.”

What he neglected to mention was the increasing frustration of Siri users expecting more from a voice assistant. From simple requests returning inaccurate results to the inability to performthat he compound actions, Siri was in desperate need of attention going into WWDC. But will the Siri upgrades in iOS 12 do the trick?

All the important new stuff Apple revealed at WWDC 2018

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WWDC 2018
WWDC 2018 was packed with new software.
Photo: Apple

WWDC 2018 bug Cult of Mac Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote lasted nearly 130 minutes and was jam-packed with new software goodies for developers and regular old Apple fanboys.

But if you were hoping to see some shiny new hardware unveiled at today’s event, you were in for some big disappointments. Apple is doubling down on its software game. And even though they didn’t have any new physical toys to show off, Tim Cook and company still managed to pull out some big surprises.