Shortcuts that work with Siri often require specific language for answering prompts, can be too easy to overfill with verbose dialog using menus and lists, and more often than not simply cannot be triggered because the shortcut name can't be recognized by Siri – I had to rename the example shortcut above multiple times just to get it to work.Īnd third-party apps that provide actions to the Shortcuts app need to be set up properly by the developer, usually only work as intended with Siri when parameter fields are left entirely blank, and the only time I've seen this communicated is inside developer videos at WWDC – I had to wrap my own head around how these actions work, and after three years it's not clear how many developers or users are using the Siri functionality. Making any sort of advanced Siri shortcut means you need to use a mix of Ask For Input, Show Result, or a variety of other Scripting techniques that work one way when run from Siri and another way when not run from Siri – without in-app documentation that these even work with Siri at all.
One of the biggest frustrations for most people is that Siri doesn't seem smart enough – and while you can make fairly advanced Shortcuts to improve on Siri's capabilities, they're often rigid, require fairly good knowledge of how to use Scripting actions, or rely on developer support that's also not clearly communicated to the end user.
Once users get past the initial learning curves, there are a few other improvements that could be made to smooth out the path to intermediate Shortcuts work – the Siri experience needs improvement, Apple's own apps need to lead the way with innovative actions, and Shortcuts for Mac needs to round out its features. With these three features combined, I think new users of Shortcuts would have a much better time getting started – and make it much easier to keep going after the first few bumps in the road. Shortcuts is best when it abstracts problems common to other programming languages and simply removes them – changing this all could go a long way. Instead, current users have to understand the linear nature of Shortcuts, they can only see the output of the final action in the normal editing mode, and any more advanced debugging requires knowledge of Scripting actions and the best ways to show yourself what's going on. This app is extremely complicated, contains a multitude of building blocks and features, and works across most parts of the OS – most people end up trying the app a few times and quitting because they don't understand what's going on. One of the biggest areas for improvement is onboarding new users and teaching them how Shortcuts works. Improved onboarding for new users - and advanced users Plus, the middle area between those is vast and confusing, while Shortcuts seemingly leaves it up to you to figure out to navigate everything.Ĭombined with architecture changes, a lack of integration across Apple's other teams, and the natural growing pains of a brand new paradigm for computing, I've noticed a group of issues that Apple could address to pave the way and make Shortcuts an experience everyone can enjoy.
However, these continual changes amid a time of unusual circumstances have led to problems around Shortcuts, with the platform both advancing too fast for new users to keep up and not enough to keep up itself with power users. Plus, the iOS and Apple Watch experiences have improved as the app's functionality has continued to expand. The Shortcuts app has perhaps its biggest year yet in 2021, expanding from iPhone and iPad to the Mac and bringing Apple's personal automation to the traditional computing experience for the first time.