Shortcuts Reviews

by Shortcuts Is Lame

I want to create a shortcut that would detect the first name scam and the last name likely which is how T-Mobile identifies bogus phone calls. I want the action to block that phone number so that I don’t have to manually tap five different buttons to accomplish the blocking of the Kaller phone number and deleting the phone call from my list of recent phone calls.

It is absurd that the only action that exists for the phone application is make a call. I don’t need a shortcut to make a call because all I have to do to make a call is tap somebody’s phone number so if Apple wants the this app app to have a practical value in real life the list of potential actions should be more extensive to include the things that are typically done with phones. After all the iPhone has its purpose as a telephone to be the very first thing one would do with the phone

by AlanHughes

The idea of Shortcuts has always seemed potentially awesome, but then I open Shortcuts and there is just no where to begin. I want to create a shortcut to something, but there is no option to create a shortcut. The this app app, whose entire purpose is to create this app, has no option to create a shortcut. It's like it starts in the middle instead of at the beginning, giving you options, but options for what? You haven't even created anything yet...

And the most obvious potential of Shortcuts is to create literal this app, to say a music playlist, so you don't have to open the music app, go to playlists, scroll through the playlists, find your playlist, and finally play it. You could just have a shortcut directly on your home screen. Or the millions of version of this experience, a long news article you've been slowly reading your way through, the new AppleTV show you just discovered, a specific document you're working on. To cut through all the navigation and waiting for each page of each step to load, you just cut straight to it, you take a shortcut.

by Frustyak

When I had a Samsung Galaxy phone, I had a number of Bixby Routines set up to go into silent mode when I went to different doctor offices, libraries, etc. based on connecting to their Wi-Fi.
I wanted to replicate this on my iPhone but it’s impossible. It’s a one-way operation only. An automation can be triggered when connecting to a given Wi-Fi, but you can’t trigger one when disconnecting. Also, Bixby Routines have a “reverse these actions” option so that when the Wi-Fi disconnects, it automatically undoes everything in the routine. IOS automations needs this in the worst way. Until then, there is absolutely nothing of value to me in this app.

by 84MillionBeans

Shortcuts is absolutely riddled with bugs on iOS 15. Things don’t go where you put them. Sometimes, elements go beyond the scroll boundaries and you can’t get to them. Filtering attendees gives events instead of attendees despite documentation to the contrary, and if you try to read the value, you’ll get a vague error message. If you run a shortcut from another shortcut, the result isn’t given anymore, which breaks a lot of this app that expect output. During execution, it fails to wait for Siri to finish speaking, cutting her off with a vague error message. Pressing undo can crash Shortcuts , and does so often. In fact, Shortcuts crashes all the time.

This software was not ready for the launch of iOS 15, and I feel for the team making it, as they must have been under significant time pressure.

by Jmstacey

I have a simple workflow to capture receipts. Takes a picture and saves it to Files. Simple. But, if so tap the Home Screen between the time I select use Photo and when the Notification appears the operation will be canceled! Ridiculous! With the change in iOS to put both dialog boxes and notifications at the top of the screen it is super easy to do this especially because this app is SLOW. Even worse, there is no indication to the user that the operation was canceled simply because the Home Screen was tapped instead of waiting for the notification circle to full complete. Really bad design and experience and every this app update since Apple acquired has been getting slower and worse.

by Jferrozo

Trying to setup a shortcut automation to send out a message if the garage door is not closed within a specific time.
Let’s start on how almost impossible it is to get to the starting point of adding a new automation. There is no clear way to start it from the home app and add a “this app” automation based on a specific homekit device.
Next, trying to set the time in the “wait” action. The only option is to tap the + button to increase the wait time by a single second.
Finally, lost the entire shortcut bc it is really easy to abandon the automation being added without being saved and without a warning.
Why bother putting up an app that only frustrates anyone willing to give it a try?

by SF Paul

Whatever it is that has wrecked apples ecosystem - HomePods seem to be the start of the continuous problems to leverage siri, this app, any HomeKit or
Home automation capability, and mesh networks.

The phone just can’t be found although all on the same network. I do know the iPhone has to be here -like right here on me like right here on right now like if it can’t be found it can’t be done. Or I have to execute the step on the phone. It’s all pointless to have any of the devices if I have to do it on the phone. I gave up on this app I wish Apple gets their act together.

by BRAD PlTT

Shortcuts is so close to being great and getting 5 stars, but a two design choices make that impossible. First only certain automations can run …automatically. The whole point for an automation is so you don’t have to manually do anything, yet you have to manually run certain automations. Second they have repeat & wait commands but when an action isn’t made by the automation within ~170 seconds the whole automation times out and ends with an error making it impossible to wait or repeat (loop) for longer than 170 seconds. Simple fixes/changes that Apple has no intention doing.

by ZCAT9

Shortcut action can do a lot if you know how to use them however the GUI (Graphic User Interface) is unreliable, shutdown for no reason, drops your Favorites list randomly. The GUI was OK in 14 but it’s terrible in 15. If you like to be frustrated and go down rabbit holes then this Shortcuts for you. I heave spent literally weeks trying to figure what the key issue on this and have yet to find something I can consistently prove to cause this erratic behavior. Yet when I’m about to say screw you Apple for releasing such a buggy interface it will start to work relatively fine for weeks. As a retired IT guy I can say this is the worst GUI I have ever experienced.

by I💜🍩

When i downloaded the IOS 15 update everything looked fine until i wanted to do something on this app. The thing that i wanted to do was that i want to change my wallpaper without having to go to the settings app (if that makes any sense) so when i went into Shortcuts it looked really different. But i was fine with that and i got used to it really fast. When i wanted to use “Find Photo” it wouldn’t let me chose my album, it kept saying “Album, is Recent” and i tried to delete and reinstall Shortcuts . I even forced restart my phone. But of course it didn’t work. I wish i waited to until the update was safer :(

by Geams

I want to like Shortcuts. It has so much potential, but it’s very limited and it’s not always obvious which actions/triggers are limited.
As is pointed out other places: a bunch of actions are limited to pop-up prompts. It’s not always obvious which are limited, which makes it hard to test automations.
Some triggers are also limited. I wanted to trigger an action by sending myself and email. Unfortunately, only the native iOS email app works(didn’t Microsoft get in trouble for this kind of thing?). Undeterred, I started using the native Mail app. However, the trigger only happens when I open Shortcuts , which honestly defeats the whole purpose.
Long and short, Shortcuts is called “this app,” which it does fine. If you want to create a shortcut it’s probably fine. Automation: this is a poor tool.

by Lunza_

I found a glitched feature on Shortcuts that can not be solved by deleting Shortcuts and re-downloading it.

When trying to add a filter to find photos it will not allow the album filter to be changed from anything other than recents.

I’ve been hesitant to delete Shortcuts to try and fix the problem with the risk that I will loose all my app this app but it still was there after I deleted Shortcuts but the problem still wasn’t fixed. Shortcuts this app are no longer exist the shortcut app after re-downloading but, the icons on the home screen still work.

by 5838485868286

When I am editing an automation and I use an app and come back to this app, I can’t push the done or cancel buttons. I have to force close this app and re-open it. It’s really annoying.

Also, the notifications that say “running your automation” are really annoying. Most of the time, I don’t care if the automation is running, I just want it to do its job. I wish more automations would have the option to run by themselves. (What’s the point of being an automation if you have to do something to run it?) With some actions, like toggling alarms, I have to load it ask before running and I don’t have a choice.

by Fuzwuzzy

I used to use Shortcuts a lot to turn on/off a lot of alarms at once. I’m the kind of person that sets alarms every 5 mins or so, I don’t trust myself with the snooze button. So more alarms is the safer option. Anyway, Shortcuts helped me do it all at once. But recently, after some update, when I trigger the automation, I get a banner notification and I must click “ok” on each one for every alarm one by one. That’s really annoying and inconvenience. I stopped using Shortcuts for that reason.

by Bakeyhnu

I’m not sure if it’s just me being stupid, but they’ve changed a BUNCH of things with Shortcuts. I was trying to make my phone a lot more aesthetic, because serotonin, but I noticed, since i last used Shortcuts the layout is very different. I can no longer figure out how to change the picture into something different, and I also can’t figure out how to add it to my home screen. Shortcuts has a lot of potential now it seems impossible to change it to anything pleasing, and the suggested actions is just annoying and in the way.

by JNH

I really like using Shortcuts and you can make it do some pretty neat stuff. It has an ask before running in most cases, but I noticed for receiving an iMessage message you have to tap the notification which makes this automation practically useless. Why would I make an “automation” if it’s not actually automatic when I have to tap twice to get it to do what I want to do.

I frequently lose my phone around and wanted it to turn the volume up and play a song when my wife would send me a certain message. It would be easier than having her log into my account or me log into a computer to make it beep on Find my iPhone. So maybe let us be able to choose if we want it to run automatically and integrate Find My iPhone in this app. If the “ask to run” isn’t there because of “security”, enough with all this “security” stuff and let us choose how we want to run our phone and how secure it is.

Thanks!

by Xsunnshyne

Many apps that I’ve tried linking with this app in order to do check-ins and such, do not work at all, resorting to me having to go into Shortcuts itself anyways. The automation that uses location such as when “arriving” to or “leaving” a location doesn’t work properly if the highest location accessibility allowed is only when Shortcuts is in use because that would require having Shortcuts opened which the defeats the purpose of it being an automated command. However, the biggest issue with Shortcuts is it’s inability to have multiple criteria that can be easily set in order for an action to be performed. Taking the location example above, what if I wanted to add a time criteria so that it’s only when leaving and arriving on specific days and times? Can’t do that. At least not easily.

by No Name Usr

It improved, especially since now the annoying notifications can be turned off. But Shortcuts freezes while, I guess, it’s trying to sync. Also, home screen this app freeze having to restart your device as the only option. this app that use dictionary actions also need a big improvement since they are slow compared to this app using “choose from menu”. Shortcuts has so much potential but it’s usually held back.

by TheTobster5000

I really want to use automations more, like toggling wifi and cellular when i arrive/leave home or a friend’s house etc. but for some reason there’s no toggle to ask before running for all types of automation triggers. it’s there for some, like when you stop an alarm, but it’s not there for others, like arriving at/leaving a location.

Also, why is there no option to trigger silent mode on the ipad or apple watch through a shortcut? that should be integrated into focus but since it isn’t i’d like to use this app as a workaround. since it’s not connected to a hardware switch on those devices, you should be able to toggle that through this app.

like i said, almost amazing. automations are incredibly useful and i use this app every single day, but there are a few key things missing. those two just bother me the most

by Moonlight Loves Animals

This is a really good app and it helps me feel better with sticking things to certain colors instead of regular apps that are bright and give me headaches,
however i recently updated my phone and whenever i add something to the home screen it closes Shortcuts for me, it would be best if there was a settings on Shortcuts to fix that if possible!

Along with the notification saying it opened Shortcuts can also get annoying, Honestly i feel like it would be best to set up a settings where you can turn these things on/off. And if there already is please tell me! ^^

by FlowerSea69

With the introduction of more customizable layout of iPhones I have used it frequently, one small problem, when you make a custom shortcut to customize a app icon, when you open it you get a annoying pop up at the top of the screen, and there is almost no way to get rid of it, other than also programming another action with opening Shortcuts , such as telling your calculator to type a random number, but even this method of getting rid of the pop up does not work all the time, I say about 75%, it would really be convenient if we could have the option to turn it off, I don’t need to know what app I opened, I’m opening it for a reason

by Ksnyder21

Having what’s essentially Automator on mobile is extremely useful, I have a bunch of automations made that run at specific times and places. For example running an eight hour timer as soon as work starts, disabling battery saver when charged past 40%, turning down bedroom lights at 9:00 if I’m at home, turns lights up to full brightness after my morning alarm is stopped, etc etc

There is one great annoyance, however. It sends you a notification every single time you run an automation. Every. Single. Time.
Have an automation that runs when you leave home? Phone buzzes. Or one that runs every day at 6:00 AM? Bzzt bzzt.

You can disable this app’ notifications using Screen Time but it will always get re-enabled shortly after and will also block any notifications programmed into a shortcut.

by Heyf62635udge

This is easily one of the most powerful apps on the iPhone if you know how to use it. I have been experimenting with it a lot recently and I use it almost every day in one way or another. There is still some work to be done with Shortcuts and more things to be added but it is still really useful and fun to play with as it is and I am impatient to see what they will add in future updates. I am hoping to see some sort of support for coding in the future among other things.

by David_vm

Aside from the recent bugs introduced in iOS 15, this app is the most well designed app that comes with your iPhone. The interface is intuitive and highly functional, and I remember that I was able to put together a time-saving shortcut within a few minutes the first time I used Shortcuts . Where Shortcuts needs improvement is the permission requests which slow down shortcut execution. I think you should be able to grant blanket permission to a trusted shortcut to do whatever it wants without being prompted to approve it. Overall, great job on Shortcuts.

by Laylee Garcia

So I love Shortcuts helps for my apps to make the icon different super cool but every now and the. When I go and make a new icon for Shortcuts so say I change the messages app icon right so then I go to change the music icon app it the messages app changes to the messages if your confused on what am saying go on tiktok and search fr0ogy_muhro0m the video should be pin about what am talking about Sorry for the grammar mistakes by the way!