One of my favorite things to mess around with as of late on my iPhone and iPad is the Shortcuts app. For those of you that aren’t familiar, Shortcuts is an automation app that was brought to the Apple’s phone and tablet platforms after the company acquired the app Workflow, which I distinctly remember using a bit back in the day. With the launch of iOS 13, Shortcuts became a default app and I’ve recently been reinvigorated to learn the ins and outs of it. When iOS 14 launches, the app will expand even more, including in the area of Apple Watch support.
As I’m going though the app learning how to automate everything from adding tasks to my to do list, to quickly accessing a recent blog post to share on Twitter, I’m finding myself wanting to bring the ability to automate things over to my MacBook Pro.
To be clear, MacOS does have automation tools built in. In fact, the platform has two automation tools built in. The first is in the form of the long-existing AppleScript, which allows you to write automations by way of coding. The second is through the Automator app, which is a bit more in-line with Shortcuts, though still requires a bit of understanding to use.
Since Apple is planning to launch Macs with their own silicon in them starting later this year and these Macs will have the ability to natively run iPhone and iPad apps, I have my fingers crossed that Apple will also put official support for Shortcuts in their desktop and laptop OS.
Of course it’s possible that Apple won’t make this move, or they may want to wait until closer to the end of the two year transition period, but native Shortcuts support is one thing that will nudge me in the direction of upgrading (?) from an Intel-based Mac to an Apple silicon one sooner rather than later.
What do you think, though? Are MacOS’s built-in automation tools good enough or would you also like to see Shortcuts brought to MacOS in the future? Let’s talk about it more down in the comments below.
And a bonus question: if you’re an avid user of Shortcuts on iOS or iPadOS, what’s your favorite shortcut that you’ve made or discovered. I think for me, it would have to be the shortcut I made to easily share recent blogposts to Twitter. Shoutout to /u/FifiTheBulldog over on /r/Shortcuts for helping me figure out the part of the shortcut I was struggling with the most. I look forward to using those tweaks to better learn how to work with dictionaries in future shortcuts!
Dan Stransky 