iPad Pros

Transcript of Interview

(2m 8s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Thank you for having me.

(2m 8s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I’m not sure if we…

(2m 9s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s a pleasure as always.

(2m 13s) Tim Chaten:

Do we start with Shortcuts Version 1 back in the day?

(2m 15s)

I forget how long we’ve been doing this.

(2m 16s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Maybe. I feel like we always start this show by trying to remember how many times we’ve recorded, but it’s the annual tradition.

(2m 17s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(2m 21s)

We are, I had to look at…

(2m 24s)

Yeah, I had to look at past episodes to figure out what version of Shortcuts this officially is.

(2m 28s)

And it’s officially Version 7.

(2m 31s)

So this feels like…

(2m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah.

(2m 33s) Tim Chaten:

You know, we have the iOS 7.

(2m 34s)

Seems like that was a big deal, as far as the OS is getting matured.

(2m 40s)

Wow, shortcuts is getting old.

(2m 43s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, it’s weird. It’s the fact that it’s been out for seven years is like Doesn’t doesn’t make sense

(2m 50s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’s kind of wild, yeah.

(2m 54s)

Yeah, we weren’t quite sure when Apple acquired them what would happen.

(2m 57s)

And the best possible scenario, I think, here.

(3m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Definitely. I’d say we’re getting into the Beyond realm of like, I don’t know, we’ll see with Vision Pro in the future, but some of what we’re…

(3m 11s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’s like it was at one of the apps on the Vision Pro that you could sneak a peek.

(3m 15s)

Oh, there’s the shortcuts icon on the Apple Vision Pro. It’s like…

(3m 18s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Well, it’s not even that, though.

(3m 20s)

It’s the app intent – We’ll get into this later,

(3m 24s)

but the app-intents APIs that power shortcuts power a lot of how interactive widgets work,

(3m 30s)

and I think potentially some future stuff in Vision Pro.

(3m 34s)

So it should be.

(3m 35s) Tim Chaten:

Very cool. Yeah. So for those that don’t know who you are, you are Matthew Casanelli,

(3m 40s)

and you are All Things Shortcuts. What all are you up to these days?

(3m 46s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I mean, since working at Apple, I’ve been doing independent stuff since shortcuts came out, and that’s been a lot of fun.

(3m 56s)

Just recently I started doing some more app consulting, because there’s a lot of apps out there that need shortcut support, a lot that adopted it like two to three years ago and then stopped.

(4m 7s)

So now I’m kind of trying to work more directly with some developers to just give advice on what they should do and specific for their app and things like that.

(4m 16s) Tim Chaten:

Very cool. Yeah, very cool and very useful for the community to make sure you know when developers are paying attention to shortcuts what they should actually be doing instead of just like You know Starbucks has where you can reorder your coffee drink which I’m sure a lot of people use but

(4m 34s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, but every brain, I mean, yeah, some of them are just aren’t super obvious and other ones are and there’s always just optimizations and it’s kind of like, I know it when I see it. And so now you can hire me to do that officially for you if you have an app. So that is fun.

(4m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and as you said with the interactive widgets that work can be used for other things which will be cool.

(4m 51s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Totally.

(4m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, so I’m curious, what’s your iPad life like these days? How has that changed at all in the past year and what’s your current iPad setup these days?

Your iPad Life

(5m 10s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Definitely been interesting.

(5m 12s)

The main, the biggest difference this last year is I’ve been reviewing the M2 iPad Pro.

(5m 17s)

So I’ve been getting a taste of the latest and greatest because I still was on the 2018 two terabyte.

(5m 24s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, a lot of people are rocking that one still. It’s held its…

(5m 25s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I’m pretty sure I was hitting the ceiling pretty hard there at the end,

(5m 32s)

just because I have so many shortcuts and with so many widgets,

(5m 36s)

even just memory and swapping and things like that

(5m 40s)

were starting to struggle.

(5m 41s)

And then just, I really wanted to test the external display stuff and Final Cut Pro type things.

(5m 48s)

And so thankfully Apple was like, you can, you can test it.

(5m 52s)

So I have been working with off of that and that’s been really good.

(5m 56s) Tim Chaten:

Is it a one terabyte model or one of the lower storage models?

(5m 57s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s definitely, I think it’s one terabyte.

(6m) Tim Chaten:

Okay. Yeah. Well, you also get the 16 gigabytes of RAM with one terabyte, so that’s fine. Yeah.

(6m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think they always do that at least.

(6m 3s)

So you get totally.

(6m 8s)

So yeah, that’s been fun.

(6m 10s)

I really like the display too, like watching, every once in a while, I’ll be watching an Apple show and I’ll be like, wait, this actually looks better on my iPad than my TV because the iPad screens are just like perfectly built for it.

(6m 23s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I watch a lot of shows there and it’s…

(6m 27s)

Gives me excited for Apple Vision Pro ’cause it’ll be that but movie.

(6m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, that’ll be fascinating, too.

(6m 35s)

Yeah, I mean, I use all three sizes of iPad.

(6m 39s)

I have an 11-inch from 2020, and then I also got an iPad Mini.

(6m 41s) Tim Chaten:

Uh huh. Awesome.

(6m 44s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And so I have been kind of–

(6m 45s)

I always do balance and just switch between them constantly,

(6m 50s)

and I’m always trying to find the best combination.

(6m 53s)

I do think I’ve kind of been struggling because I will always get my iPad really set up.

(6m 59s)

And then, oh, I mean, I have.

(7m 1s)

So many issues with shortcuts, home screen widgets failing,

(7m 6s)

and sync problems that sometimes shortcuts on the iPad just goes too slow for me.

(7m 11s)

And on the Mac, it can, it’s like one of many processes,

(7m 15s)

and so it doesn’t struggle as much.

(7m 16s) Tim Chaten:

• Right.

(7m 17s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So sometimes I do move away from that.

(7m 20s)

But then, I mean, there’s been all this discussion lately about like, iPad as a laptop replacement.

(7m 27s)

And I don’t necessarily,

(7m 30s)

I never even…

(7m 31s)

fully went for that myself, but I think I’ve been trying to figure out where it fits more because there’s like… if I don’t have an iPad, I really don’t just like being on the Mac all the time too,

(7m 42s)

so there’s there’s definitely a place for it in my life at all times and every single day I’m using like… I’m using an iPad and a Mac at the same time most of the time, so…

(7m 53s) Tim Chaten:

What’s the better shortcut building experience? Is it the Mac these days or is the iPad and touching and

(7m 59s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It depends. Um, I do think I like the touch experience, but I think it has been Struggling for me personally because I mean I have like over 3,000 shortcuts. And so during beta season it can be pretty rough to Use the touch interface and just like typing in or just something is going a little too slow I think I just it feels so much more natural though. I

(8m 26s)

I wish they added some of the keyboard shortcuts that were on the Mac.

(8m 29s)

They did most of them, but they’re not the same.

(8m 33s)

You can’t click on a cell and then insert if you use a keyboard shortcut on the Mac.

(8m 39s)

If you click on an action, you can press Command+Shift+V and it’ll put a variable right after that.

(8m 45s)

On the iPad, it puts it at the bottom.

(8m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, nice. Yeah, uh, yeah. Gotcha, yeah. You are a Final Cut Pro user on the Mac, is that accurate?

(8m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So if they had some more of that in the editor, I’d probably use it.

Final Cut Pro

(8m 58s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I Like it I think I think in the same thing I I When I record streams, I do like seven tracks and it is like just above what Final Cut can handle So I did run into quickly that my particular workflow wasn’t perfect for it but I do think in terms of again the same thing as I

(8m 58s) Tim Chaten:

How have you found the iPad version?

(9m 10s)

Yeah, okay

(9m 24s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I use the iPad as part of the ecosystem.

(9m 28s)

my footage to edit it down to make that first kind of assembly run great on the iPad. And then I usually don’t want to sit there on the Mac right after I record to do that either. So I’ll bring it into Final Cut, trim it down and do some of that basic storyline stuff. And then it’s kind of like there’s online editing and offline editing, and I’ll do one half on the iPad and the other half on the Mac.

iPadOS 17

(9m 55s) Tim Chaten:

And then, as far as iPadOS 17, which as you’re listening to this, I believe we’ll be out.

(10m 3s)

How has this update changed how you use the iPad?

(10m 6s)

I know we have interactive widgets which are currently just now in beta and that’ll change a lot once that, you know, starts to roll out.

(10m 15s)

But how’s the iPadOS 17?

(10m 19s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I definitely like the stage manager changes.

(10m 22s)

Those made a big difference just in terms of being able to actually use Windows where you want to.

(10m 30s)

I’ll say Shortcuts got the extra large widget, which you know that means I went to town with that.

(10m 38s)

So I put every single one of my widgets into the Shortcuts extra large widget and redesigned my whole home screen around that.

(10m 44s)

So that’s kind of been the major change,

(10m 47s)

is just that it’s kind of like…

(10m 50s)

iPadOS has caught up to where I was designing my home screens three years ago with tons of shortcuts on the home screen.

(10m 58s)

So now, I mean, even with interactive widgets,

(11m 1s)

I’ve had interactive widgets this whole time with shortcuts.

(11m 4s)

So it’s kind of like the rest will be great, but…

(11m 6s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, did the shortcuts widget change its interactivity at all? Is it functionally the same or did it?

(11m 8s) Matthew Cassinelli:

No, I mean, a couple of years ago,

(11m 16s)

they changed from the basic…

(11m 19s)

Used to be workflow UI, and then they pulled apart shortcuts into the Siri interface.

(11m 25s)

And so that’s still just part of the Siri stuff that pops over.

(11m 29s)

So it’s always kind of like the widget itself is just telling the shortcut to run separately.

(11m 35s)

So it’s not like they were truly interactive.

(11m 39s)

But again, you could do it from the home screen without opening the app.

(11m 42s)

So that’s been the big thing.

(11m 44s)

And it really is…

(11m 46s)

Like, I take it for granted because I’ve been using stuff.

(11m 49s)

from the home screen for the last few years.

(11m 52s)

And now everybody else will be having the same kind of experience where the home screen is kind of like this place that you stay and do stuff from rather than just immediately jumping into apps.

(12m 4s)

So especially on iPad, like that’s what it’s for.

(12m 8s)

And a lot of times, even when I’m using it at my Mac,

(12m 12s)

like universal control means I can still interact with it in the same way.

(12m 16s)

So having a good iPad home screen, even if you’re at.

(12m 19s)

Mac can still be really beneficial.

(12m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Have you dove into lock screen shortcuts on the iPad? Is that of use to you or do you prefer just being on the bigger home screen?

(12m 34s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I have. I mean, one of the problems that I’m having with the lock screens is that I have 10 of them and so each individual widget is something that I don’t see as often.

(12m 47s)

Also, the iPad is asleep. So I tap it and then I open it and then I’m using it.

(12m 53s)

So there’s like one second where I see the lock screen. I think this is a pretty clear precursor to

(13m)

the next iPad having a always-on display or like

(13m 4s)

even just like a FaceTime or not Face ID like location awareness like it could tell that you’re there so it lights up sort of thing because otherwise right now it doesn’t doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense but like

(13m 19s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’d be cool if, like, your Apple Watch was nearby, how it was…

(13m 27s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, something like that. Definitely, I think in general they need to make the watch know that you’re using the iPad and the iPad, all those kind of like, they are vaguely aware of each other right now, but they’re not very intelligent.

Anything else in the iPad world?

(13m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Anything else in the iPad world this past 12 months worth catching up on before we move on?

(13m 50s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And I’m not sure I think in general iPad is just kind of like Juggling along the way it always has been the I mean we’ll get into some of the features that we add with shortcuts that with like stage manager automation is your display automations that I think take what we got last year and Make just like let you utilize it a little bit better, and there’s just low hanging fruit there, but in general

(14m 13s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

(14m 17s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s kind of funny that there has been so much discussion

(14m 20s)

about the iPad as like I’m not sure the purpose of it when simultaneously we just got everything we’ve ever wanted with it and now there’s it’s almost like there’s like nothing left to pine for so people are like oh okay we’re I’m satisfied now but that’s not that’s not nearly as like enticing as

(14m 41s) Tim Chaten:

It’s a funny discussion because it’s like, you know, the iPad is what it is. It’s slowly getting better and better, slowly. And people want everything now. They want audio hijack to be capable on iPad and stuff like that. I get it. I don’t know. At the same time, I spent $2,000 on my iPad set up and it’s like, I’m going to make it work. And I actually enjoy making it. I enjoy all the things in something like a big like

(14m 54s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, those ones are long overdue, but…

(15m 11s) Tim Chaten:

struggle for me to like figure out how to do stuff because that’s just how my mind works whatever but like if I had if I owned a mac a modern mac and a modern ipad use whatever tool seems best for that current job but you know it seems like there’s a lot

(15m 36s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think it goes back to like, I mean, maybe there was a bit during the, I don’t know if the pandemic era has anything to do with it, but like, the iPad is the future of not being at your desk 24/7, and maybe some of what people need right now is to be at their desk 24/7, and that’s okay for that, but also there is this whole other world of computing where We’re not just in our rooms the whole time.

(15m 51s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(15m 52s)

the

(16m 4s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And so like maybe vision.

(16m 6s)

And Pro is executing on that too, but like all of the above, I think there’s always a place for it.

(16m 12s)

And for an iPad to be both is always great.

(16m 16s)

Like I take my iPad and I’ll watch a movie and I’ll do work on it.

(16m 20s)

I don’t want to use my laptop to do those personal things.

(16m 25s)

And so I think having that blend of a computer is always going to have an awesome place.

(16m 31s)

I think for me personally, shortcuts was always the reason I loved the iPad.

(16m 36s)

And then I got it on the Mac and I was like, “Great, and now I can do everything anywhere.”

(16m 40s)

And I think a lot of people, I mean, I don’t know, but if you didn’t dive into that whole workflow,

(16m 47s)

you might not reap those benefits like people like us have.

(16m 52s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and for me, the external display support, and especially with Stage Manager being so good now, as far as not being overly controlling about its opinions, it does feel like when I docked into this display that I got a little, you know, simplified version of the Mac with all the,

(17m 11s)

I prefer the apps that I like are on my iPad, like there was no fair rate for Mac,

(17m 18s)

I don’t want to use logic and, you know.

(17m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That’s the one awesome one for podcasters, for sure.

(17m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sure there’s a lot of apps, you know, Audio Hijack would be cool to have.

(17m 30s)

But yeah, I’m happy with my ecosystem of apps I have now. And I’m sure there’s apps I’d love on the Mac, but I just don’t have access to that right now.

Your coverage of Shortcuts

(17m 42s) Tim Chaten:

So this past year, how has your kind of coverage of shortcuts evolved? I know you have a new membership podcast, which is pretty great.

(17m 50s)

Is it just the one episode?

(17m 52s)

for now and you’re working on the second one.

(17m 52s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I’m recording. I just finished prepping for the second one, which is gonna be a long one, but definitely that’s been a change I just want to like give people Contacts like this. It’s like I’m jealous when you get to spend two hours talking about all these updates So just kind of doing that more regularly. I’m kind of I’m trying to keep up link blogging too because I used to do everything in my newsletter and I really I struggled over time with if

(18m 21s)

If it seemed like I…

(18m 22s)

I was never publishing on my website because I’d saved all these good stories every week.

(18m 26s)

So I switched to now like link blogging all of them.

(18m 30s)

So I’ve been doing tons of little posts.

(18m 32s)

But it’s pretty easy to miss.

(18m 34s)

So then again, the newsletter is like just the roundup.

(18m 37s)

Pretty much the same material, but now it’s actually on the web.

(18m 40s)

And hopefully giving people more access to that stuff.

(18m 44s)

So yeah, just part of that is that Apple has also been publishing changelog.

(18m 52s)

for shortcuts for the last year, which has been really nice.

(18m 55s)

Very convenient for a show like this, I’m not gonna lie.

(18m 57s)

But also just in general, because they’re…

(18m 58s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(18m 59s)

You don’t need to, like, look at Reddit and dive into all the updates and make sure there’s something you missed.

(19m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I love it because, for one thing, I’m holding…

(19m 6s)

Yeah, well, there’s actually…

(19m 8s)

That all comes out afterwards, so we still do have to do that.

(19m 12s)

But they do…

(19m 13s)

They detail like every little fix, which is nice.

(19m 16s)

So things that I would just never notice of like this bug was resolved or whatever.

(19m 23s)

But also we can hold their feet to the fire and say,

(19m 26s)

"You fixed this six months ago, and now it’s broken again.

(19m 29s)

Why isn’t this fixed still?"

(19m 30s)

And things like that.

(19m 31s)

So there’s definitely a long history of bugs with shortcuts that are still probably unresolved.

(19m 37s)

So if you have any current bugs out there in your shortcuts user, file them again.

(19m 42s)

And we can start being like, “Why isn’t this fixed yet?”

(19m 47s) Tim Chaten:

[chuckles]

Updates to Shortcuts since we last spoke

(19m 48s) Tim Chaten:

So since we spoke last year with shortcut six,

(19m 53s)

I’m curious, were there any mid-year updates to shortcuts

(19m 59s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, so that was one of the big –

(20m)

in the release notes for 16.4, I think it was,

(20m 5s)

they added a whole new set, just mid-year for fun.

(20m 10s)

I think this is –

(20m 11s)

if they’re somehow listening to this later,

(20m 14s)

please do this every year,

(20m 16s)

because giving us actions is great.

(20m 18s)

But we got actions for the Books app,

(20m 21s)

for Intercom on the HomePod, VPN, AirDrop,

(20m 26s)

the stage manager stuff, announced no–

(20m 29s)

Notifications, silence unknown callers, night shift true tone, always on display.

(20m 34s)

You can shut down, restart, and lock your display on iOS and iPadOS and Mac.

(20m 42s)

And then on Mac you can also log out, sleep, put the display to sleep. So lots of little functions.

(20m 48s)

But the books ones I love. I’m all about

(20m 54s)

Interacting with the books app and all the audiobook stuff that I have they they just made

(20m 59s)

it a little bit easier there but the intercom one is sweet you can just have Siri speak anything in your house you could have it like transcribe your whole podcast and then just I don’t know why you’d want to do it over the intercom but yeah see that’s these are the real ones that I didn’t I got like behind on these and I didn’t really put them to the great use where with automations I was like can I just have it read out?

(21m 5s) Tim Chaten:

• Huh.

(21m 6s)

[laughing]

(21m 12s)

• You could have an automatic weather announcement every morning at 9 a.m.

(21m 29s) Matthew Cassinelli:

any alert at any time in my house

(21m 31s) Tim Chaten:

It says, yeah, it says here on watchOS,

(21m 34s)

what’s the deal with,

(21m 37s)

I’ve always been confused by watchOS.

(21m 40s)

It seems like some stuff runs locally,

(21m 43s)

other stuff not so much.

(21m 44s)

Does like watchOS will talk to the home pods?

(21m 45s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah Now I mean that part is intercom is just built into the home features and it’s it’s even on the home app on the watch so it’s just Sending it like an audio signal. It’s not like Running it at this year though. You’ll be able to do app shortcuts on home pod, which is a good update So like in general the home pod just hands things back to the phone

(21m 48s) Tim Chaten:

‘Cause I know I can’t airplay to home pods.

(21m 57s)

Oh, okay. Gotcha.

(22m 12s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But I think the watch is slowly trying to do more

(22m 15s)

and more of the execution of the shortcut.

(22m 17s)

It just kind of depends on the steps, I think.

(22m 21s) Tim Chaten:

Nice. And I like the VPN one because you get like a focus mode that you use a VPN at work.

(22m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Totally. I think what’s what’s hard about this whole set of actions is like I can’t really like make sexy demos It’s just like just use it like if you need it use it if not Don’t but I think some of them are more like announced notifications is the fun one So it’s like during work mode Siri can read out your notifications over your headphones, but not during personal mode or something

(22m 53s) Tim Chaten:

• I have to say, I really love the,

(22m 57s)

I use that for iMessages where the AirPods will read off what’s coming in and that’s super handy.

(23m 3s) Matthew Cassinelli:

yeah I use it I feel like i’ve said this before maybe not on the show but I use it for my membership program and it’s it is pretty awesome for a series to be like hey you just got paid i’m like sweet so if anyone wants to help me test that out feel free to sign up

(23m 14s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(23m 15s)

That’s a fun one to get.

(23m 17s)

And then the stage manager,

(23m 22s)

currently this new action we got in mid-year enables disables, which is very cool ’cause you could have a focus mode with them in this way.

(23m 37s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And there’s also toggles on that action for the the dock and the recent apps So you can kind of have I made like options where it’s like one It’s like I just want the dock one. I want just the side thing clear it off put on both I think what I struggled with is I just want more advanced Actions to place windows in those stages. You can’t really

(23m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, very cool.

(23m 58s)

Yes, I want to be able to set up like, I want a shortcut to like, this is my podcasting stage.

(24m 6s)

Hit that.

(24m 7s)

It’s set up with the four apps I’m using and a different, you know, that’d be great.

(24m 10s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, yeah, it’s like, I feel like it’s like,

(24m 12s) Tim Chaten:

But no.

(24m 15s) Matthew Cassinelli:

this is one of those things too,

(24m 17s)

where we’re like, this seems so obvious,

(24m 19s)

and then they just like, don’t do it for like a year and a half, and we’re like, come on.

(24m 21s) Tim Chaten:

’cause they have ones for split screen setups.

(24m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, which will do it.

(24m 25s) Tim Chaten:

So they realize this is a thing people want.

(24m 28s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It will put two apps on the stage if you use that,

(24m 33s)

and then have stage manager activated.

(24m 35s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(24m 35s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So like, you can kind of get there, and I think, yeah,

(24m 36s) Tim Chaten:

But only two apps, yeah.

(24m 39s)

Slide over?

(24m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I can’t remember if you do two,

(24m 42s)

and then you also open on slide over,

(24m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Right.

(24m 44s) Matthew Cassinelli:

and then toggle stage manager on, it might put all three.

(24m 47s)

Um…

(24m 48s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I’ll play around with that.

(24m 49s)

But they should really just have this and they should have different modes where like,

(24m 52s)

resize the window to a quarter.

(24m 55s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Totally.

(24m 55s) Tim Chaten:

I don’t know, some way of resizing to take up each a quarter.

(24m 56s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s all built into the Mac OS, too.

(25m 1s)

So again, I think it’s either coming in the 0.1 or this 0.4, again, of iOS 17, or they have to wait a whole other year.

(25m 14s)

I can see some of these just not working very well,

(25m 17s)

or a stage manager has to be right first before these can be implemented.

(25m 21s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I could see that being a thing.

(25m 22s)

They’re trying to perfect what stage manager is before they add actions to it on iPad.

(25m 27s)

The display setting with True Tone and Night Shift,

(25m 32s)

the one thing I really want at some point is when I’m editing a photo to turn on the iPad’s fancy reference mode,

(25m 42s)

but it seems like that was not included there.

(25m 45s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Same, same feature. I think doesn’t it require a restart? That might be, okay, I think I don’t think I’ve tried it actually. That restart action I actually do use and it’s kind of nice because it’s kind of hard to go in and find or like to even on an iPad you can’t really just like restart it.

(25m 49s) Tim Chaten:

No, it doesn’t require a restart.

(25m 51s)

• Sure, yeah.

(26m 3s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah so any any bugs, bug issues you can actually restart them.

(26m 4s) Tim Chaten:

No, I tend to just shut, I go to settings and shut down, but there is an hour restart.

(26m 9s)

That’s, that’s probably, yeah, that’s easier than doing the, whenever they switch to the new way of restarting it, they’ll do some kind of like Konami cheat code to restart your devices now.

(26m 23s)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I always have to, you know, look on a search engine. How do I force restart Where are my eye folks?

(26m 24s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, like the up-down volume thing.

(26m 34s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(26m 37s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Totally and then the one time I’m thankful it’s never happened to me, but the one time you Don’t actually have a second device is what I’m always worried

(26m 46s) Tim Chaten:

• Right, yeah, and the always on display toggle seems cool for the iPhone.

(26m 54s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, it’s like in settings too.

(26m 56s)

And one thing actually for a lot of these individual features is they’re now–

(27m 2s)

I’m assuming this is built using shortcuts, but it’s not.

(27m 5s)

They have a settings feature where, in Spotlight,

(27m 7s)

if you just search for the word “always on display,”

(27m 10s)

there’ll just be a toggle right there that you can flip,

(27m 12s) Tim Chaten:

Very cool Yeah, I have no use for this because I use um I use a sleeve so I don’t use a case from that not using my Phone I put it in the sleeve and that just by default turns off the

(27m 13s) Matthew Cassinelli:

which is pretty– yeah, and for like every–

(27m 28s)

just for whatever reason every beta has been turning off it’s always on display and I had to keep turning it back on and it even right now I have to so I don’t know why. I bet the other thing I’ve been trying to figure out and this is what’s probably the case is that I set up an automation to have it occur at some random like time or like trigger that I don’t know and so now it’s just like once a week it’s turning off and I don’t and I didn’t really…

(27m 58s)

realize that I just like set it up as a sample automation but I don’t think so I think it’s the betas that’s that’s the most logical explanation

(28m 3s) Tim Chaten:

• Mm-hmm.

(28m 3s)

The last thing on this list is,

(28m 9s)

repeat can now be set to run zero times.

(28m 12s)

Am I, well, what is the point of this one?

(28m 16s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I’ve seen people use that as a way to mark out a section of actions without deleting them,

(28m 25s)

where it’ll skip over them by repeating zero times. So if you don’t want to delete part of your flow, you can move it into a repeat loop and repeat zero times, and then it’ll just kind of skip it. It’s like a meta thing, but for somebody like if you’re like

(28m 46s)

Federico building your screenshots thing and you have 400 steps in the middle of it, you could you could like do that and hide it or something. I don’t know. Some of that is just like probably built for random people like us. But yeah, that’s why exactly that kind of esoteric bug fix you’d never know, and then it could present some opportunities. So I hope they keep documenting every update.

(28m 54s) Tim Chaten:

Gotcha. I see.

(29m 6s)

Right. Yeah. So let’s dive into shortcuts of version 7, which is out with iOS and iPadOS 17. Are there any like overriding themes or trends with this year’s updates or any opening thoughts before

Shortcuts 7

(29m 28s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s a big year.

(29m 32s)

Shortcuts is always interesting because it always either seems like nothing happened or it could change everything.

(29m 38s)

Like we got automations are now fully automatic.

(29m 42s)

The shortcuts widget came to the Mac,

(29m 44s)

which I think is a huge thing because this maybe isn’t for the iPad pros podcast,

(29m 50s)

but it just brings shortcuts right into the home,

(29m 53s)

the desktop home screen environment for every Mac user.

(29m 58s)

People who are trying to get productivity stuff out of their Apple devices can happen on Mac and just with shortcuts, you need to surface that stuff.

(30m 4s) Tim Chaten:

So, is your 27-inch monitor on the Mac now just filled with shortcut widgets?

(30m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Both of them, yes, both monitors.

(30m 9s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(30m 13s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I went overboard for a minute and I had to slow down ’cause it just wasn’t helping.

(30m 17s)

And of course I was crashing it again every day.

(30m 21s)

So it just couldn’t load it all at once.

(30m 25s)

But yeah, I mean, they simplified a lot of it to.

(30m 28s)

The other thing is app shortcuts are becoming more prominent in almost like the shortcuts app is being redesigned to show what is now spotlight shortcuts.

(30m 42s)

So if you search for a term like day one, it’ll show next to it a shortcut to create entry and then to like view your most recent entry or something like that.

(30m 52s) Tim Chaten:

I’ve noticed that, yeah. And I search for “app,” looking for App Store, the appearance shortcut switching from dark to light mode will show up in Spotlight search where it can just toggle that right within Spotlight now. Yeah.

(31m 4s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, that’s kind of that setting thing But like every app will be able to provide those app shortcuts and then in the shortcuts app When you go look at the day one section It’ll show you that kind of it’s like a new tile interface with a colorful background and things like that Mostly in a way to like make it easier for you to just use any shortcut even if you just open the app you can run it and it kind of has a

(31m 31s)

more graphical interface than

(31m 34s)

what app short like normal shortcut

(31m 37s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I’ve noticed music, if I search for music, it’ll show my recent albums right there in the top hits to play.

(31m 45s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, it’s basically all the donation stuff that they’ve been doing for years where you tell the system, apps tell the system what stuff you’re using. Now it can just kind of surface the most common actions or like the top app shortcut that the developer recommends.

(31m 57s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, yeah, like right now I have nothing in the search box and right under my series suggestion apps I have recents from photos, which I’m assuming is one of those donations,

(32m 11s)

and often played at this time is playing new episodes in Overcast, which looks very much

(32m 18s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, those are all–

(32m 21s)

those are just kind of the same series suggestions stuff they’ve done for the past years.

(32m 26s)

They’ve minimized it so you can see more per screen.

(32m 30s)

But then if you search for the word overcast, it’ll also–

(32m 34s)

I mean, to be fair, he probably hasn’t implemented this yet.

(32m 38s)

I would search for voice memos as the demo they keep using.

(32m 41s)

But you can record a voice memo straight from Spotlight by tapping that app shortcut.

(32m 48s) Tim Chaten:

Oh yeah, record and play loud.

(32m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Basically, yeah, so those are called app shortcuts for Spotlight.

(32m 53s)

And then that tile interface is now the main interface of shortcuts for third party apps past all of your custom shortcuts and stuff,

(33m 4s)

which, to be fair, I never see because I have so many.

(33m 7s) Tim Chaten:

[chuckles]

(33m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s just buried down at the bottom.

(33m 11s)

But it’s the same thing of last year where app shortcuts enable you to just install something like overcast and then just.

(33m 18s)

say play whatever station and it has already provided that shortcut to the system and then the same thing you can just search for it and even before you ever set it up it’s already available and you can use it so it’s kind of like all the way from just using the app to search like a major thing for years and years for especially the home screens and shortcuts tons of people just tell me I just search for the app and use it so going to find the shortcut and run it is like

(33m 48s)

this other roundabout method and so now it’s just right in spotlight they always kind of had them but it was kind of buried I think now this year they’re like oh people actually use these especially if we provide them for them automatically so now it’s kind of I find it all the time i’m just searching for my shortcuts and running them and that’s great too and another feature on

(34m 10s)

for just custom shortcuts is the dot dot dot the edit menu is in spotlight so if you

(34m 18s)

search for a shortcut by name you can edit it right away which is that was like made for me because I have so many and I always like searching for them and opening them is what takes me so long just because I have so many and so like just kind of getting it right to it and editing it is great I i need that in the widget too that’s kind of what does kill me I know why they don’t but I if I could edit any of my shortcuts or edit a folder straight from the widget I would have so much smoother.

(34m 21s) Tim Chaten:

• Hmm, yeah.

(34m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

of a workflow because right now I’m always going back to the front of the app and finding my shortcuts again. But yeah spotlight stuff is I think that’s gonna be huge and my my vision pro teaser is that I think in the future you should be able to look at something like your lampshade and it knows that that’s a homekit device and then the app shortcuts pop out to the side and you you can just look at them and run the shortcut.

(35m 18s)

my like it’s got they’ve built shortcuts into the ecosystem now where you can run it from anywhere and it’s truly interactive from anywhere and so that means it slowly can be divorced from the app itself and just uh just a function

(35m 32s) Tim Chaten:

• Right.

(35m 32s)

Yeah, that would be pretty cool.

(35m 36s)

I do wonder, the camera,

(35m 38s)

it’s for you to see what’s going on around you.

(35m 42s)

I don’t know if, and Apple’s scanning it to,

(35m 46s)

for like, make sure you don’t hit your foot and stuff,

(35m 50s)

and all that.

(35m 51s)

I don’t know if it’s analyzing what’s in your room and has any way to, yeah, it is.

(35m 55s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Oh yeah, it definitely is.

(35m 57s)

It’s all AR, that’s all the AR kit stuff they’ve been doing for years and years,

(35m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(36m 2s) Matthew Cassinelli:

is identifying the objects.

(36m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(36m 4s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I mean, really what you do is probably assign that lamp to a shortcut kind of thing,

(36m 5s) Tim Chaten:

Right.

(36m 10s) Matthew Cassinelli:

and then it just knows because it like, stapes the environment.

(36m 11s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, because you can assign windows to live at a certain spot in each room you’re in, and it will remember that.

(36m 18s)

So, kind of basically that…

(36m 19s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But it also is like, if it’s giving off a signal or something like that, too.

(36m 21s) Tim Chaten:

Right. Yeah.

(36m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

This is where I believe in Apple’s ability to execute in ways that I can’t even fathom right now. It’s like, they don’t have that limitation.

(36m 34s)

They have, like, whatever they have such – I mean, obviously, they have, like,

(36m 39s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, they need to put the…

(36m 41s) Matthew Cassinelli:

reality of limitation, but, like, just versus where we are with OS right now.

(36m 46s)

It’s like, they can figure that out.

(36m 47s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I wonder too if they’ll start putting that air tag chip inside HomeKit accessories as a official third-party

(36m 47s) Matthew Cassinelli:

about.

(36m 57s)

Yeah, I don’t know about third parties, but definitely all the home pods have U1s in them right now, so that’s kind of why they’ve been…

(37m 5s)

I’m like, eh, it seems… it’s one of those things where it seems obvious to me, but not other people, and that’s like a sign that they’re probably gonna do it because it just is like laying the chips.

(37m 18s)

They do this, where they’ve like… we’re like, what will they do with U1? And now it’s four years later, and they’re like, by the way, boom, here it is.

(37m 27s)

Because they haven’t thought of it, and that’s why we need to share our ideas with them.

(37m 31s) Tim Chaten:

• Right, yeah, so let’s get to the actions.

Camera Actions

(37m 36s) Tim Chaten:

In shortcut seven, one batch of actions they added after the initial betas came out,

(37m 43s)

are these new camera modes that you can launch right into.

(37m 47s)

See cinematic mode, take a panorama.

(37m 52s)

This seems pretty neat.

(37m 54s)

So you could have a photography kind of focus mode and have all these different options on your lock screen

(38m 1s)

and that seems pretty nice.

(38m 4s)

The one thing I do want,

(38m 6s)

I’m not sure if it’s an option at all,

(38m 8s)

is launch my camera into pro raw capture or live photo capture for just standard photos.

(38m 16s)

Is that a thing at all?

(38m 17s)

Okay.

(38m 17s) Matthew Cassinelli:

it is not. And this is, of course, where we’re like, great, now do the next part.

(38m 19s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(38m 22s) Matthew Cassinelli:

You guys did it, but we all want actual controls, not just the start.

(38m 27s)

So my theory or my heart is going off of that this is the first step, and that they’ll add more parameters to this action later that’s just changed the mode for it.

(38m 40s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(38m 42s)

Right, and with video, how cool could be if you could set the video resolution, the frame rate, all that stuff that can change drastically depending on when you were wanting to shoot?

(38m 44s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Again, I think–

(38m 48s)

Yeah, totally.

(38m 51s)

Again, it’s like, why did this not? I don’t understand, but I think it’s…

(38m 57s)

I almost just imagine an organization, the major corporation, being like,

(39m 3s)

“We’ll release this version first and then the second version do more,”

(39m 7s)

rather than just doing it well the first time. But it takes time.

(39m 12s)

And it is, I mean, I can still appreciate this too.

(39m 15s)

It will set up some more situations.

(39m 17s)

for people and I think people will have to, again,

(39m 20s)

we have to demand that we need those features.

(39m 22s)

Like this is good, but this isn’t enough is always worth saying because they might think it’s enough.

(39m 28s)

And there’s always that blend of shortcuts being for the average person versus pros like us.

(39m 36s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, the quality thing is what I care more about hotswapping, ’cause that seems hard.

(39m 36s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But still, yeah.

(39m 40s) Tim Chaten:

It’s harder for me to do that sometimes.

(39m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s so obvious, that’s why it’s, yeah.

(39m 42s) Tim Chaten:

Just like the video resolution,

(39m 44s)

you have to go in settings app.

(39m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Anybody who wants to use the video controls,

(39m 51s)

like the first thing people ask me when they get shortcuts is like,

(39m 55s)

“Oh, can I control the video camera stuff?”

(39m 57s)

Like still can’t.

(39m 58s)

And it’s been like four years since some of those people.

(40m) Tim Chaten:

Is there a setting URL where you can jump right into the settings app and pick that stuff out?

(40m 6s) Matthew Cassinelli:

that page, yes there is, and I do have a shortcut for that. But again, it’s like, now I’m…

(40m 6s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. Yeah.

(40m 10s)

Right. Now I get it. Yeah.

(40m 12s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I’d rather just do it all at once. That’s like, not the strategy.

(40m 17s) Tim Chaten:

And then they added as well stuff for the NFC chip for like when you tap an Apple wallet

NFC Actions

(40m 30s) Tim Chaten:

pass. What is it exactly? Transactions. Okay. Oh, okay.

(40m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s I think it’s I think it’s just transactions regardless of whether you physically use so if you just pay on your phone to Like online I don’t I haven’t actually tried that now that I think about it. I only did the wallet thing Which was it you were the one who was like it’s finally working right or no who was that no okay?

(40m 47s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah.

(40m 48s)

No, I’ve not tested this either.

(40m 53s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Someone someone’s been like oh, I’m fine. Oh, yeah, I know it’s a it’s a Matt Corey who’s making the home pass thing and he’s like I can’t

(41m 1s)

keep going to the store and buying stuff and then it doesn’t work but yeah the so what’s weird is they this is in typical Apple fashion the first version of the transaction automation had four different types for ID cards and travel passes like I take Bart in the Bay Area and then now that’s all gone and it’s only just straight transactions I do I think we’ll get back in iOS 17.1

(41m 3s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(41m 27s)

Huh. Yeah.

(41m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

because like they haven’t really released the identity stuff publicly so like it sometimes it is kind of like a teaser for upcoming features but just in general with transactions anytime you make a purchase it can just pass the

(41m 47s) Tim Chaten:

But the transit one you could hypothetically tie into if you have say $100 transit pass You could have the shortcut where every time you tap it It like in a spreadsheet updates how much money is left on my cards, you know what they’re like I don’t know. I’m not sure if the pass is actually on Apple Wallet will actually say how much is left. I have not used one of those in a while

(42m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Uh, yeah, I mean mine, mine shows its own amount, but I don’t know if it could, it might be able to do that with the, one of the things with all these actions is that they have variables in them so you can get the transaction details.

(42m 21s)

So that’s rather than just the transit thing, just like you can log any of your daily purchases to a spreadsheet.

(42m 27s)

I mean, ironically, the add to numbers action doesn’t work.

(42m 32s)

It has to open the numbers app.

(42m 33s)

And so again, why?

(42m 37s)

Like two years ago, now we have transaction automations and still this feature has to open the app.

(42m 42s)

Like you can’t log this to Apple’s built in spreadsheet tool and so you have to find a third party, which is fine for third party ops, but also for a normal person it’s like,

(42m 53s)

this is dumb.

(42m 54s)

I want to use numbers.

(42m 56s)

So again, I feel like I’m verbally filing feedback.

(42m 59s)

Second, second piece there is that you should be able to do that.

(43m 3s)

for people who, like any business person.

(43m 7s)

business expenses, you can automatically track right now, which is awesome.

(43m 11s)

So, using QuickBooks or something like that.

(43m 15s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, and then external displays.

External Display actions

(43m 19s) Tim Chaten:

So if your iPad connects to a monitor,

(43m 22s)

say my Sony end zone M9 in front of me,

(43m 25s)

I can trigger something to happen,

(43m 27s)

or when it disconnects,

(43m 28s)

I can trigger something else to happen.

(43m 30s)

And I learned based on your write-up,

(43m 33s)

I thought I was gonna suggest this to Apple,

(43m 36s)

but they already did this.

(43m 38s)

If you have different branded monitors,

(43m 40s)

it can behave differently for the different monitor.

(43m 42s)

So say if you have a Sony gaming monitor

(43m 45s)

and an Apple monitor in a different room,

(43m 46s)

it can behave differently and put it in a different focus mode

(43m 52s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yep, exactly. It just uses the name of the device, so.

(43m 55s)

Mine, I have two LG HDs, and they just do one and two afterwards, so it should work, but you could also, like,

(43m 56s) Tim Chaten:

So if you have two, the exact same monitor won’t know what’s going on.

(44m 7s)

Oh, so okay, they are named differently.

(44m 8s) Matthew Cassinelli:

yeah, you could also, like, include logic if you want to do the same two monitors.

(44m 15s)

You can just, like, if it contains or something like that.

(44m 19s)

So yeah, those are those are

(44m 22s)

Like great too, but I still haven’t like I’m partially I had I’ll have a monitor in the other room And I was trying to use that for the iPad But I just found that like I was trying to force this setup that I didn’t actually care about so that and I think what’s funny too is The 12.9 iPad fits just perfectly so it doesn’t look it doesn’t feel very nice underneath a display Like it’s built in height it like touches the top of the or like the bottom of the monitor

(44m 51s) Tim Chaten:

See, this is why you need a hover bar duo and it sits right next to your big monitor.

(44m 52s) Matthew Cassinelli:

feel perfect Yeah I’ve never I’m doing I have a stand that I keep mine up But I don’t I don’t like it fully mounted because I actually take it out and use it Yeah, so like I’ve never I’ve not been I’m not like a full iPad desk setup Person has much because I mean personally I’m always trying to stream and stuff. So So.

(45m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Okay, okay you like the touch-ins

(45m 13s)

Yeah, right.

(45m 15s)

And you’ve got the Mac for the desk set up, so you already have that solution.

(45m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I go for all types of setups.

(45m 26s)

So I think that’s where – I probably will find a use for this,

(45m 30s)

but I think it’s the same thing where sometimes during the beta season,

(45m 33s)

I really try hard to, like, make this happen, and I don’t – I don’t care.

(45m 37s)

Like, this feature just came out doesn’t mean now I have a use for it.

(45m 41s)

I don’t – and sometimes that’s really – I try to, like –

(45m 46s)

I don’t know, even Apple as an inspiration is, like,

(45m 48s)

Just because you have the technology doesn’t mean I need it.

(45m 52s)

It’s built off of my needs first and that’s one thing that I’m super guilty of with shortcuts is just making a shortcut because I can, not because I actually do need that.

(46m 4s)

So I think these same things I was trying to take advantage of but didn’t really have one.

(46m 10s)

The thing that would have made immediate sense to me is Stage Manager, but it already turns itself off.

(46m 16s)

It’s like it’s built into the display. So when you’re using it, it’s already on.

(46m 18s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, you can’t use an external display

(46m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, so that’s where like, I don’t, I just don’t, I mean, you can think of like a specific use case where it’s like now it unplugs and it goes to bright mode or just like some of these again are like nice to haves, but I don’t know.

(46m 36s) Tim Chaten:

Oh yeah, that is an idea. When you plug in the display, if you’re trying to use your iPad in a fake clamshell mode to turn the display brightness all the way down, and when you unplug it again, bringing it all the way back down.

(46m 50s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I mean the thing I found with the Stage Manager one that I tried to make work was when I turn off Stage Manager, open my Slide Over apps, because in theory it broke down all of my Slide Over setup. But then I just found anytime I’m just like, “Oh, I don’t want to use Stage Manager anymore,” and then suddenly six apps open and I’m like, “What is happening?” So I think the part where like the balance between like true automation and…

(47m 13s) Tim Chaten:

It’s kind of interesting.

(47m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

just like oh when this occurs I might want this to happen is like I think that is something I’ll need a balance now because we actually have true automation and so like the confirmation automations I before it was always like way too much mental work for me because everyone was constantly like trying to notify me and then I didn’t really know what it was doing and some of that I can get to this later too but some of the automation stuff changed and so like I think now now those ones are in the same place.

(47m 50s)

So if I have a bunch of other ones that actually pop up, I might actually see them and process them and use them, whereas the other ones are just going off in the background.

(47m 59s) Tim Chaten:

It’s kind of interesting mid-year we had Stage manager the ability to turn it on or off and then now we had Billy once it’s turned on or off to do something So you could like Use those two in conjunction, you know Exactly the thing we actually

(48m 12s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, but again, we can’t open the apps in the way that we want.

(48m 15s)

So if I could turn it on, this is exactly it.

(48m 18s)

Both of these actions, 100% I will use them when I can turn on Display Manager, or when I’m connected to an external display, move my four windows over and set them up.

(48m 30s)

I’ll use it in a heartbeat.

(48m 31s)

Until then, there’s like toggle settings, maybe?

(48m 35s) Tim Chaten:

Right

(48m 35s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I don’t know.

(48m 36s)

Or like, start time tracking, like, yeah.

(48m 40s)

I think that’s again…

(48m 42s)

It’s a perfect example. Always, some stuff in shortcuts doesn’t make sense, and then six months later you’re like, “Oh, okay, now I’m gonna…”

True Automations

(48m 49s) Tim Chaten:

• So you mentioned this just a minute ago.

(48m 52s)

We now have true automations.

(48m 54s)

So instead of, we have the run immediately for automations where you don’t need to confirm with a, you know,

(49m)

a dialogue thing, and this is great.

(49m 4s)

So are there any caveats here?

(49m 6s)

Does everything work this way or?

(49m 9s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Um, so, uh, location ones were broken for a bit and now are working again.

(49m 14s)

Um, my first caveat is test this, good God test this, because the reason they didn’t do this is it’s going to just happen.

(49m 23s) Tim Chaten:

You’ll just send a text to your boss, uh…

(49m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And so if you are at a location and you come back, it’ll go off again.

(49m 28s)

And so they told, I think they really didn’t want to like leave this on people,

(49m 33s)

but now it’s like, like you have it and it’s your responsibility to make

(49m 39s)

sure you don’t do things like that.

(49m 40s)

Stage manager one was a good example of just like, there’s going to be stuff happening and you’re not going to know why, and it’s going to be weird.

(49m 47s)

But you like also though, I think just, this is why I think this is a big year for shortcuts is so many people come in, they’re like automations and then it doesn’t work automatically and they’re like, I’m never going to use this again.

(50m)

That was stupid.

(50m 1s)

So like now it actually works when you say it and they just changed the fricking language.

(50m 6s)

So it used to be don’t.

(50m 7s) Tim Chaten:

[chuckles]

(50m 9s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Don’t ask before running question mark.

(50m 10s) Tim Chaten:

[Laughter]

(50m 11s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It was a double negative.

(50m 12s)

And like when I saw run immediately,

(50m 14s)

I was like, man, they must have had a copywriting session where like my words were like printed.

(50m 20s)

I like making fun of them was like printed out because it was, it wasn’t, did not make sense before.

(50m 26s)

And now it’s like, oh yeah, automations are automatic.

(50m 29s)

What a, what a concept.

(50m 31s)

But it’s, it’s good because I think in the same thing,

(50m 35s)

going back.

(50m 37s)

I haven’t been able to really–

(50m 39s)

use it the way that my brain can think of in any moment,

(50m 43s)

because suddenly you’re limited by X, Y, or Z.

(50m 47s)

I think they do need to add some more duplicate suppression.

(50m 52s)

They did this for Wi-Fi, but they didn’t add it for Bluetooth or location.

(50m 59s)

And I think there should be toggles that’s like, only run this once every six hours,

(51m 4s)

or something like that.

(51m 6s)

and the same thing with Bluetooth.

(51m 9s)

If my AirPods connect using, what’s it called?

(51m 14s)

Not universal control, but just a little, yeah.

(51m 16s) Tim Chaten:

The Passover, the yeah, the thing where it, not Passover,

(51m 18s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Wait, what?

(51m 19s)

Passover?

(51m 21s) Tim Chaten:

but it’s a Jewish holiday.

(51m 21s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That’s, isn’t that a religion?

(51m 24s) Tim Chaten:

What’s it called?

(51m 24s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah. (laughs)

(51m 26s) Tim Chaten:

Audenax Switching, where it passes,

(51m 28s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, that automatic switching thing.

(51m 28s) Tim Chaten:

I’m thinking of like passing audio from one device to another.

(51m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah. (laughs)

(51m 31s) Tim Chaten:

It’s like, it’s the Passover technology.

(51m 32s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Passover, I love it.

(51m 33s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, it’s probably not, no.

(51m 34s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I don’t think so. (laughs)

(51m 37s) Tim Chaten:

I’m not on Apple’s marketing team.

(51m 37s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But, uh, no, yeah.

(51m 39s)

But it’s like, if I, if something on my Mac starts playing audio, it will, I mean, not Mac, that’s a bad example, but if something on my, if I’m using my phone and my iPad starts playing audio, that automation will immediately run before I even actually connect it.

(51m 52s)

So I think that, like, having more granularity in those Bluetooth controls is going to be necessary because people are going to want to use it, that one’s like a pretty good one, but then if it just automatically does it every time, it’s kind of like, ugh, like, or without you really knowing what’s going on.

(52m 9s) Tim Chaten:

The most annoying things thing that error pods do to me is I must say that the device switching is much better with 17 But if you’re using your Apple watch to listen to something and you’re out of iPhone range from Bluetooth And then you re-enter iPhone range of Bluetooth It’ll stop playing audio and connect to your iPhone because of course that’s what you want to be connected to even if you’re in the middle of something else

(52m 37s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Hmm, I don’t usually use the watch itself, I think because my AirPods rarely would connect in time.

(52m 42s)

And so I more like use the watch to control what the phone is playing.

(52m 46s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I often leave the phone behind.

(52m 55s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I always want to do that but then I’m like oh I want to take a picture oh

(52m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. No, I get it. I often am walking with someone that has a phone. I’ll just borrow that one.

(53m 6s)

Anyways, so the Books app got some shortcuts last year, as you mentioned,

Books Actions

(53m 13s) Tim Chaten:

and some new ones as well this year. Anything in here that…

(53m 21s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Um, not particularly. I think the books app it more just like got me into what we got last year, which is just Using the current, uh, like you can open the current book or the audiobooks ones which are fun. So I’ve been listening to that. Um, what’s silo Yeah, i’ve just been I mean i’m just a sucker for apple stuff. So I mean, yeah, we’re on the ipad pro’s podcast I think

(53m 33s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Do you, yeah, you use Apple audiobooks versus Audible?

(53m 37s)

I know, I am too. Like, yes, I mean, iTunes movie library is probably over a thousand at this point.

(53m 51s)

But like Audible, it’s funny, and I don’t use Kindle, I use Apple books because I prefer that app. But for whatever reason, that Audible subscription is just too good to pass up.

(54m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I mean, they just always, it’s always available.

(54m 4s)

But I mean, they definitely need to improve the audiobooks thing.

(54m 7s)

Like, I do love the shortcuts.

(54m 9s)

And they had a widget too, so I’m totally a sucker for that.

(54m 12s)

I mean, the Find Books thing just lets you search through your library and kind of show different results.

(54m 19s)

So I think this would be most useful if you had a lot of PDFs, because you could kind of,

(54m 22s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah Mm-hmm.

(54m 23s) Matthew Cassinelli:

like, actually access those like a file system,

(54m 26s)

rather than the other books’ actions are more just,

Stopwatch actions

(54m 33s) Tim Chaten:

And then stopwatch. Is it right? You could basically build your own stopwatch within a shortcut app, you know, little pop-up menu.

(54m 43s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I mean, these ones are pretty basic.

(54m 47s)

I think I was looking at what you were suggesting.

(54m 49s)

I don’t think you can –

(54m 51s)

You might be able to do time tracking through the timers.

(54m 54s)

The stopwatch one doesn’t provide data as an output.

(54m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Okay, yeah, my suggestion was could you read the stopwatch and like send that to some app somehow

(54m 59s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, no, that would be good.

(55m 6s)

I mean, it’s pretty interesting.

(55m 8s)

They just added, like, “Start stopwatch reset,”

(55m 14s)

do those basic things.

(55m 15s)

I think some of these maybe were maybe geared more towards the Apple Watch and, like,

(55m 20s)

being able to have functions on any screen.

(55m 23s)

I mean, it’s just kind of like –

(55m 25s)

Like, you could automate these.

(55m 26s)

You can combine them with anything else,

(55m 29s)

like a kickoff thing.

(55m 30s)

So I think I’m going to have to have –

(55m 35s)

I can tell that I have to have, like,

(55m 38s)

a retreat-in-the-woods session and really go to, like –

(55m 43s)

Or maybe it’s just find some coach who times people,

(55m 47s) Tim Chaten:

• Yes.

(55m 47s) Matthew Cassinelli:

and then he’s like, “Oh, man, I’d love to have a stopwatch to do this, this, and this.”

(55m 48s) Tim Chaten:

‘Cause imagine you could have it,

(55m 53s)

you could pick from a list of all your student athletes,

(55m 57s)

start a stopwatch, but you can’t name these things, can you?

(56m)

‘Cause that’d be cool,

(56m 1s)

but you could have different stopwatches that are named.

(56m 2s) Matthew Cassinelli:

well this is all I feel like timers you’re getting close like it’s all essentially the same thing and I know good but timers kind of down this sounds like the stupidest yeah well it’s just time tracking yeah that’s fair I mean I think building out the stopwatch app for coaches is not

(56m 4s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(56m 8s)

Yeah, timers count down.

(56m 12s)

So you need a counting up timer that you can name,

(56m 16s)

also known as the stopwatch.

(56m 17s)

But imagine that if you’re a coach, you’d have 10, 10, 15 stopwatches going that are, you know, named different.

(56m 31s)

No, I’m sure there’s some great, amazing stopwatch app for coaches out there.

(56m 32s) Matthew Cassinelli:

a good idea, sorry, but um well that’s why I mean i’m using toggle for time tracking and that’s fantastic you could technically I don’t know about simultaneous timers but

(56m 38s) Tim Chaten:

That’s got to exist.

(56m 39s)

I’m kind of curious about that now.

(56m 44s)

Right.

(56m 47s)

My favorite thing about the stopwatch is opening it like a week later after I forgot I started abroad again.

(56m 53s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, I think I saw, I think Mark Settle, who’s an English journalist, had a timer that was running so long, it overflowed out of the visible decimals on the screen.

(56m 53s) Tim Chaten:

It happens at least a couple times a year.

(57m 11s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And he set up a video with him and his kids when it finally went over, and they were like,

(57m 17s)

“Oh!”

(57m 18s)

And then they were like, “Oh, that wasn’t that exciting.”

(57m 21s)

But so the.

(57m 23s)

The multiple timers one I think this is it seems like the timers team was gave gave us everything that you want for stopwatches but the you can start and stop and get the data out to which is.

(57m 35s) Tim Chaten:

A little side tangent with timers.

(57m 37s)

I’m very disappointed in the Apple Watch timer team.

(57m 40s)

For a single year, we had the ability to favorite a time for the timer.

(57m 46s)

And they took that out.

(57m 47s)

Now it’s just a list of kind of the recent timers.

(57m 50s)

And it’s super buggy.

(57m 51s)

If I use like the complication to get back into the timer,

(57m 55s)

often it’ll display the full time before it started.

(57m 58s)

It’s the most, I’ve run beta eight that’s record.

(58m 2s)

Timers on watchOS is still very…

(58m 5s)

buggy in this new version. Yeah. I use them very heavily.

(58m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I haven’t had that much issue, but I mean the whole multiple timers like with shortcuts now if you just press start timer three times in a row it will start three separate timers and so Yeah It’s an interesting. I mean the and what’s weird is then they get current info Timer is like a waterfall down from the most recent timer. So like you can only ever get

(58m 17s) Tim Chaten:

I discovered that, that was fun.

(58m 20s)

Um, yeah.

(58m 34s) Matthew Cassinelli:

like the next timer information, but

(58m 37s)

you can’t it is it’s still pretty nice you can one thing that I always hate about timers is you’re like when did I start this like I stopped at 15 minutes into it or like 13 minutes and it’s a 28 minute timer when did I start it like doing that date math your brain is just like give me give me a second hold on so like some of that with shortcuts now you could you could automate or if you’re big into timers

(59m 4s) Tim Chaten:

scrolling up thing with the widgets on the Apple Watch,

(59m 7s)

that timer is rock solid.

(59m 8s)

The actual app is not,

(59m 10s)

but the data when you scroll up is there.

(59m 13s)

And I just tested,

(59m 15s)

you can have a bunch of timers all running in that widget area all at once.

(59m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Oh, I’m just seeing there’s a shortcut thing in there that wasn’t in there earlier in the dock.

(59m 29s) Tim Chaten:

Hmm I wonder that’s we created for

(59m 29s) Matthew Cassinelli:

It’s showing me no shortcut, but interesting.

(59m 33s)

Hold on, let me test this real quick.

Shortcuts Widget on the Watch

(59m 39s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Oh, I can put a shortcut.

(59m 43s)

Oh, I can fill up my dock with shortcuts now for no reason.

(59m 49s)

just have scroll up on.

(59m 50s)

I mean, I didn’t have my shortcuts syncing on the watch for six weeks, and it turns out that you have to go click on iCloud and sign in to iCloud on your watch now, which I don’t remember if that was ever a feature before, but I was just like, I’m like, oh, this is so dumb.

(1h 13s)

It’s a bug.

(1h 14s)

It’s like, no, I’m just not signed in.

(1h 15s) Tim Chaten:

I will say, too, it appears you can have unlimited timers running on your watch, and they all show up in the little widgets section,

(1h 15s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Well, that’s sweet though.

(1h 24s) Tim Chaten:

which has a hard cap on how many widgets you can put in there, but it does not seem to have a cap on your timers, so you can have this endlessly scrolling list of timers on your watch.

(1h 36s)

Uh…

(1h 36s) Matthew Cassinelli:

they have 10 shortcuts endless timers we should see how many you can get in case people didn’t know you can have like 45 or more apple watch faces which I i figured out at one point it just keeps going I don’t know if there’s a limit I mean i’m sure there is

(1h 38s) Tim Chaten:

I I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

(1h 53s)

I mean, I have a good 20 timers running on my watch now that I don’t know if that’s going to be annoying pretty soon.

(1h 1m) Matthew Cassinelli:

yeah halfway through this episode.

(1h 1m) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, my watches, they claim you.

(1h 1m 7s)

But that is things.

(1h 1m 8s)

So what’s the shortcuts thing on the watch with the

(1h 1m 13s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And just in that new, when you scroll up using the digital crown, it’ll show like those select widgets. And I just saw that there was, it was suggesting the shortcut to me. So you can pin a single shortcut in there and just keep it accessible. So that’s great. Yeah. I love that.

(1h 1m 30s)

In general, the shortcuts watch app, I think got a lot of love this year. I think maybe related to some of those sync bugs and just like the interface doesn’t load all of the shortcuts at once. It’s,

(1h 1m 41s)

there’s a sea.

(1h 1m 43s)

all option which I feel like again I had 200 loading and so it would just crash immediately every time but um app shortcuts show up on the watch now too so those same like three voice memos ones will have their own little category on the watch so you can it seems like the watch is like growing up a lot this year with I actually really like the changes with the gestures and the interaction design it’s like a little awkward at first and kind of kills your muscle memory but also.

(1h 2m 13s)

I think last year at one point I tweeted it I was like, “I forgot about the side button on the watch.”

(1h 2m 18s)

Like that dock button or whatever it did before?

(1h 2m 21s)

I don’t think I pressed that for an entire year.

(1h 2m 24s)

And it was just like nothing to me.

(1h 2m 26s)

I don’t know why.

(1h 2m 27s)

Yeah, see, some people are, maybe, yeah, some people are like, “I use it all the time.”

(1h 2m 31s)

I’m like, “I forgot it was there.”

(1h 2m 33s)

I think the way they changed it totally makes sense.

(1h 2m 36s)

It’s just like easier to understand.

(1h 2m 38s)

It gives you access to those widgets.

(1h 2m 40s)

And I think it’s just kind of like, you could really get–

(1h 2m 43s)

–lost on the watch before, and I think now, like, the honeycomb is like a scrolling honeycomb, which I totally love.

(1h 2m 48s) Tim Chaten:

I love the new honeycomb. I never used the honeycomb before because I always got lost in going sideways and up and down. Yeah, because I was a list mode person, hardcore,

(1h 2m 56s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I had to spend like an hour or two sorting it, and then I liked it, but it still, it was hard.

(1h 3m 4s) Tim Chaten:

and then they fixed the honeycomb for me. It’s like, “Oh, this is the way.”

(1h 3m 10s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, watches. Watches just kind of chug along. Honestly, the same thing, I’ve had so many sync issues with the watch that I really haven’t been able to almost ever really run shortcuts from it since it came back. So I think now I’m kind of like getting back into it for the first time.

(1h 3m 27s)

I think the big thing though is they’re pretty clearly going to put an action button on the new iPhone or supposedly that’s the new thing. I’m kind of, I think that’s a little funny because I personally, well, one thing is the buzz, the.

(1h 3m 40s)

Bugs meant I couldn’t use it a whole lot.

(1h 3m 41s)

It also failed.

(1h 3m 43s)

I tried to make a shortcut that depending on the time of day would do something different and it just couldn’t execute the shortcut.

(1h 3m 48s) Tim Chaten:

• Mm-hmm.

(1h 3m 48s)

Huh.

(1h 3m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Um, so like that was just like the watch can’t do it.

(1h 3m 50s) Tim Chaten:

Is that improved with this kaleidost version?

(1h 3m 53s) Matthew Cassinelli:

The phone’s never going to have that problem.

(1h 3m 55s)

I haven’t been able to test it on this, on this most recent one.

(1h 3m 57s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(1h 4m) Matthew Cassinelli:

Like I literally got my watch to sync on Sunday, so it’s been kind of brutal,

(1h 4m 1s) Tim Chaten:

Okay, gotcha.

(1h 4m 5s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But I think too, like, the interface for picking an…

(1h 4m 10s)

action just lets you select one single shortcut forever.

(1h 4m 14s)

And I think that, I mean, it presents the opportunity for someone like me to make a shortcut that changes function depending on the time of day.

(1h 4m 20s)

But I think it should, I think they need to do more than just, like, let me run one shortcut.

(1h 4m 26s)

It’s like a shortcut per day or like a whole scheduling system or, I don’t know, like, focus modes, let me change it.

(1h 4m 31s) Tim Chaten:

I’d imagine when in a focus mode,

(1h 4m 35s)

when in this focus mode the action does this,

(1h 4m 37s)

when in that focus mode it does that.

(1h 4m 39s)

I’d imagine that’s possible.

(1h 4m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So I thought of this, the way they could do this is they make a shortcut action that says,

(1h 4m 48s)

set the action button to a shortcut.

(1h 4m 51s)

And then I can use, get my shortcuts to,

(1h 4m 55s)

or like pick a shortcut or whatever, and then set it,

(1h 4m 58s)

and then it’ll change and I can automate it.

(1h 5m)

And then they don’t even need an interface for it either.

(1h 5m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yeah. I will say, I’m very excited for the third party watch apps, because I got my first beta with OmniFocus has their beta that has a widget for watchOS 10. It’s like, oh, this is great. I’m going to want like, I’m out of widget space. I want more space for more wages on watchOS And I know it’s going to be a problem once the third party

(1h 5m 3s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So feedback number three, let’s file out to them.

(1h 5m 7s)

I guess it’ll come out afterwards, but still.

(1h 5m 31s)

Do you mean the new lower widgets thing or okay?

(1h 5m 33s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, yeah, where you scroll up.

(1h 5m 36s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Let me, I want, let’s do more real time.

(1h 5m 40s)

I want that and I just switched OmniFocus.

(1h 5m 42s)

So how do you, they have one that just shows like your forecast, is that what it is?

(1h 5m 47s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, they have a forecast one

(1h 5m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I wanna set this up ’cause I’m really digging OmniFocus.

(1h 5m 56s)

I honestly like prefer things,

(1h 5m 59s)

but army focus.

(1h 6m 1s)

this is what I need for being me and the kind of person that I am so do you use the forecast one or like the the numbers do you actually show the tasks wait just like the the number one or the the other graphical oh I have too many pinned that’s why yeah see now I have 99 tasks

(1h 6m 11s) Tim Chaten:

I’ve been using the forecast one. Yeah.

(1h 6m 23s)

Yeah, there’s there’s a very short limit like I can have a thousand timers running but only like I don’t know

(1h 6m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Well, that’ll be another feature they have to change just for us.

(1h 6m 36s) Tim Chaten:

• Yes.

(1h 6m 37s)

So, back to shortcuts.

(1h 6m 40s)

We sometimes do tangents, which is all right.

(1h 6m 43s)

You can have, there’s a scan documents action,

Scan Documents action

(1h 6m 46s) Tim Chaten:

which I could have sworn, this is new.

(1h 6m 49s)

I mean.

(1h 6m 50s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think we had… did we have a scan? we might have had some sort of scan function and this uses like the actual proper scanning thing um I mean we’ve always had the camera one I don’t know if that’s what you’re thinking of um yeah but what’s weird about this is I was testing this it saves it to wherever you have the files app open so it doesn’t it doesn’t yeah because like technically if you

(1h 6m 50s) Tim Chaten:

[Arin laughs]

(1h 7m 1s)

Okay Yeah, but no scanning before yeah, this is yeah this

(1h 7m 16s)

Huh. You can’t set it anywa- you can’t set it.

(1h 7m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

use the scanner in files it is just like activating the scanner it’s not like for a specific spot so I was like making a whole shortcut to open and apply it yeah

(1h 7m 32s) Tim Chaten:

So you need to first have an action that tells it to open X folder, then do scan.

(1h 7m 38s) Matthew Cassinelli:

and then it needs to get the contents of that folder and then get the latest item.

(1h 7m 42s)

And then also, of course, in the current betas the find the filter files actions are just broken on iPad and Mac. I’ve been for the last two betas, just can’t filter files right now. That’s fun.

(1h 7m 54s)

Jason Snell was annoyed at that and was messaging me and it’s like, oh maybe they’ll fix it. No,

(1h 8m)

I haven’t fixed it yet. So yeah, that one’s also weird. I feel like that should have an option to to let you save it to a specific file.

(1h 8m 8s)

or even pass the file out as output.

(1h 8m 12s)

It just literally opens the file scanner thing and then saves it to whichever folder is currently open.

(1h 8m 18s)

So yeah, kind of weird, but you can get around it.

(1h 8m 21s)

Again, I think optimizations are probably needed.

(1h 8m 24s)

But it does let you scan multiple files.

(1h 8m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. And then the fitness app, we can now end workouts and we can…

Fitness actions

(1h 8m 33s) Tim Chaten:

There’s actions for those mirrored workouts with cycling. These I will probably never use.

(1h 8m 36s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, the mirrored ones also disappeared. Those disappeared now, too. So, same thing, probably coming later. You can end a workout, too, which is good.

(1h 8m 39s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, lovely.

(1h 8m 42s)

I don’t get this. Like, your watch is on your wrist.

(1h 8m 47s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I mean, Siri, or like, just as part of a flow, it could like, stop it and do other things. And you could put it on the watch face. I don’t know, I agree.

(1h 8m 48s) Tim Chaten:

Just hit the end button. I don’t understand this.

(1h 8m 57s)

Okay, okay sure yeah

(1h 9m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think it’s more like before you could start a workout, but you couldn’t stop it. So it probably

(1h 9m 6s)

was like somebody I mean one of the most obvious answers for everything with shortcuts is for accessibility and for something like that too so the accessibility features could the action button

(1h 9m 19s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. And then the Freeform app, there’s an action for opening a board and creating new boards.

Freeform actions

(1h 9m 24s) Tim Chaten:

This seems very handy for those that do use this app. For, say, you’re in a meeting and you can have this action that, you know, sets up Freeform the way you need it to be and all that.

(1h 9m 38s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I wish I’d let you title the new document.

(1h 9m 40s)

That was one of the, like you could,

(1h 9m 43s)

it’ll just create a blank one.

(1h 9m 44s)

I’m using this ’cause I do like reference when I create a video,

(1h 9m 48s)

I’ll create a board and reference it over time.

(1h 9m 51s)

So for me, it’s more like having,

(1h 9m 53s)

it’s like pretty simple, not anything fancy,

(1h 9m 56s)

but I’d rather have these than not have access to it and then can’t open those documents.

(1h 10m 1s)

So I think too, like these are pretty clearly for vision pro like vision pro.

(1h 10m 8s)

free form is built for that platform.

(1h 10m 10s)

And so just being able to call up a document with your voice is going to be important and a hands-free.

(1h 10m 15s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, I’m so curious how working within freeform on Vision Pro will be.

(1h 10m 19s)

There’s no drawing or anything, which is great on iOS.

Mail actions

(1h 10m 27s) Matthew Cassinelli:

this next one is also gone yeah the fine they had a fine male um but

(1h 10m 29s) Tim Chaten:

The mail app one’s gone.

(1h 10m 31s)

Okay, hopefully this returns.

(1h 10m 32s)

Hopefully this returns.

(1h 10m 34s)

So there used to be an action for finding a message,

(1h 10m 37s)

which mail, that’s the one thing like,

(1h 10m 40s)

people in my life are like,

(1h 10m 41s)

"Why can’t you find this email?

(1h 10m 43s)

“I can do it in two seconds in Gmail.”

(1h 10m 44s)

It’s like, I’m sorry, Apple Mail is just too.

(1h 10m 46s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, well that’s what’s funny is I would assume this actions Mail is already notoriously bad at searching. So this action to make it work Well, I would again I think some of these are like we maybe got teasers of stuff to come or it requires more optimization. Um The one thing with mail is mail automations are automatic now So you can when I receive an email from my boss do this sort of thing. Just say I quit every time

(1h 11m 13s) Tim Chaten:

Ooh, that’s cool.

(1h 11m 14s)

Yeah.

(1h 11m 16s) Matthew Cassinelli:

but and same with messages so again

(1h 11m 17s) Tim Chaten:

But that’s kind of neat,

(1h 11m 19s)

’cause like you could have your boss have an automation where if you have a boss that wants you to reply right away,

(1h 11m 26s)

you could have some kind of like alert that’s different from VIP.

(1h 11m 30s)

Your boss doesn’t need to be in VIP anymore.

(1h 11m 33s)

It can instead be this like action that, you know,

(1h 11m 36s)

your lights flash red and give you a…

(1h 11m 38s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Well, yeah, like even just like push cut or something on another device, like you could have your work computer notify you of important messages or something on your phone.

(1h 11m 49s)

So there’s definitely really cool stuff.

(1h 11m 52s)

And the fine mail will be huge once we get it.

(1h 11m 55s)

I think the question is whether they’ll enable the deep links that you can get from dragging mail out right now, but there’s otherwise no way to copy a link.

(1h 12m 5s) Tim Chaten:

Yes, or the Siri reminded me of this.

(1h 12m 8s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, well, those aren’t even –

(1h 12m 11s)

those probably use the same linking system,

(1h 12m 14s)

but they don’t provide the link anywhere.

(1h 12m 16s)

That’s one thing that I hate about reminders is you can use Remind Me about this,

(1h 12m 20s)

but you can’t get that data out of shortcuts.

(1h 12m 23s)

So any of those links are like kind of just invisible.

(1h 12m 26s)

But yeah, so again, I think they kind of like –

(1h 12m 32s)

maybe these actions just didn’t work well, and then they kind of locked the betas.

Photos actions

(1h 12m 38s) Tim Chaten:

So photos has these collections like one year ago recent favorites and places You can now open those with actions Have you found a way to create?

(1h 12m 49s)

Create your own collections Okay [laughs]

(1h 12m 51s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Nope. And again, I always love these because, Tim, you are always right on the ball,

(1h 12m 55s)

in the same spot with me. You’re like, "Man, that would be great if I could make my own,

(1h 12m 58s)

or why can’t I search and find more?" Again, I don’t know what’s happening here.

(1h 13m 5s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, with the places, I’d love to have, instead of just places, I’d like to have, you know,

(1h 13m 11s)

all the different places as options. I don’t know if that’s a thing where it’s like,

(1h 13m 14s)

my home address, have that be a certain action versus just generic places.

(1h 13m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

yeah, within the radius kind of thing. I think again the same thing, I almost, it’s like, I hate, I hate repeating this because that’s always when it’s,

(1h 13m 30s)

especially on the, on an iPad podcast when we always are like, oh we’ll get it next year, but they, they really are like setting up for what could be awesome shortcuts, but they just have like the front end of it right now and then like create a, I mean this, you can’t even open a photo album right now, so the fact that

(1h 13m 50s)

should let you search for an album and open it. Or like, what’s the distinction between a collection and an album? They’ve made one here, but there really isn’t one. So these should again be… this should be updated as well. I think a lot of these, it’s like, I always like to think of it as this is the photos team adding actions for the first time, rather than the shortcuts team. And they need to start with the basics and then go on. And all of the other media

(1h 14m 20s)

actions that we have were built by the workflow team when I worked there before it was even Apple. So they need the APIs that the developers have now too, to make third-party actions. Apple’s own internal teams also need those advanced functions to be able to do stuff like this. So I hope this photos, like again, it’s like there’s like, it’s like so obvious to a shortcuts user. You’re like, why can’t I do this next thing.

(1h 14m 47s) Tim Chaten:

[chuckles]

(1h 14m 49s)

Yeah, photos, so much potential there for what you could do there.

(1h 14m 50s) Matthew Cassinelli:

like we’re getting there sort of thing.

Cellular Data actions

(1h 14m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Cellular data can now be automated to set up a hotspot password, resetting your data stats,

(1h 15m 1s)

toggling cellular plans if you have multiples,

(1h 15m 3s)

finding cellular plans to set up a new one and setting the default plan.

(1h 15m 8s)

I just thought how cool it would be to set,

(1h 15m 11s)

like have shortcuts generate a random,

(1h 15m 13s)

hard to guess password automatically

(1h 15m 17s)

send it out, you know, to your significant other,

(1h 15m 21s)

maybe over some kind of iMessage thing.

(1h 15m 25s)

And every time you set up your hotspot,

(1h 15m 27s)

just randomly create a new password so it’s more.

(1h 15m 30s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, totally I think a lot of these they built off of they did some other phone stuff last year and I think for people who need this it’s super popular because you’re always on your hotspot or you’re like on a different cellular plan and Depending on that you sometimes you have different data depending on which plan it is or like a work phone so these are super useful the one that I think

(1h 15m 52s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, you could have the background automatic thing set up for when you’re in work focus mode to use this other plan When you’re not switch over automatic

(1h 16m 3s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Totally. I think for anyone who has a phone, the one that I think should just be a feature is resetting data stats. This is the thing that never made sense to me, and is the stupidest thing about the phone, is it shows you your current cellular usage since the last time you reset your data, and you can’t see how much data have I used this month. It’s like very straightforward, like when does my plan restart, show me how much data I’ve used since

(1h 16m 34s)

the last time, it just always adds up and up. I always get the best taste of this every single beta season, is it inevitably downloads some update while I’m on cellular, and uses my entire cellular plan in like one afternoon. So the automation that I think everybody should set up is either at the first of the month, or like the seventh when your plan goes through,

(1h 16m 58s)

a time automation for 12 a.m to reset your cellular data stats so that you know

(1h 17m 3s)

every month how much how much you’re actually using and you could log it right before ever

(1h 17m 8s) Tim Chaten:

Who’s your cellular provider?

(1h 17m 10s)

You might hate me for telling you this,

(1h 17m 13s)

but on T-Mobile, it gives me usage and it says last update by T-Mobile at this time,

(1h 17m 21s)

billing cycle ends September 29th, yada, yada, yada.

(1h 17m 24s)

It’s only a two gig.

(1h 17m 26s)

So I have to believe that it’s automatically doing this for T-Mobile.

(1h 17m 30s)

And if I scroll down, it says cellular data,

(1h 17m 33s)

this billing period, and has it by apps and sort by usage.

(1h 17m 38s)

or a name, and then there’s a button for last billing period.

(1h 17m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Hmm, maybe it is just Verizon is dumb.

(1h 17m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Do you have that button when you scroll down for the app list, does it have a toggle for

(1h 17m 50s) Matthew Cassinelli:

“I have current period apps by usage.”

(1h 17m 53s)

And then that’s it.

(1h 17m 53s)

Yeah, see, okay.

(1h 17m 54s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, okay. Yeah, on T-Mobile, there is a this building period and last building period, so it is a very aware…

(1h 18m)

That is wild.

(1h 18m) Matthew Cassinelli:

Well then if you’re on Verizon, you need to do this.

(1h 18m 3s) Tim Chaten:

Even on… Okay, yeah, on the Apple Watch, it just says its current period, so that’s probably…

(1h 18m 4s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, ’cause it’s literally just like not useful otherwise.

(1h 18m 19s)

This is this is a good one just for because it’s like I never know what’s happening and then it’s like some random thing down in the bottom is is Sucking up a ton of data, but you just don’t know

(1h 18m 24s) Tim Chaten:

[laughing]

(1h 18m 26s)

Yeah, that is fascinating how different carriers,

(1h 18m 32s)

like it’s very detailed what stuff is in here.

(1h 18m 34s)

Like it’s pretty cool.

(1h 18m 37s)

But yeah, I guess T-Mobile does good with this,

(1h 18m 40s)

how they integrated here.

(1h 18m 41s)

Or do you want an eSIM or I guess you have to be right?

(1h 18m 44s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Uh, I think so. Yeah. I think they just kind of switched it.

(1h 18m 46s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 18m 47s)

Okay.

(1h 18m 48s)

Yeah.

Printing actions

(1h 18m 51s) Tim Chaten:

So next up, another thing I–

(1h 18m 54s)

I could have sworn we could have done before is printing from shortcuts.

(1h 18m 56s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That you aren’t crazy We can’t we did have this. Yes, I renamed it because there’s technically a print center app for Mac now that Was always just like this print dialogue that would show up and now there’s actually an app for it I think the print action something about it changed though. I don’t remember exactly what it was But yeah, just in general you can you can continue to do that in what is now the new print center

(1h 18m 56s) Tim Chaten:

Is this really the first time?

(1h 18m 58s)

Is this really the first time we could–

(1h 19m 23s)

The Print Center app is kind of baffling on iPad.

(1h 19m 25s)

It shows up when you print and then just disappears.

(1h 19m 27s)

There’s no way to open.

(1h 19m 28s)

I love some kind of like like I’d love this app to be more fully fleshed out.

(1h 19m 32s) Matthew Cassinelli:

No, yeah, now it’s a real, it is.

(1h 19m 35s)

That’s what I mean.

(1h 19m 36s)

Like in Mac OS, you can search for print center and it’s a, or in Sonoma,

(1h 19m 41s)

you can search for it and do something, so.

(1h 19m 42s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yeah, I bring a full print app to iPad. I want to, you know, look at past print jobs and like, that’d be cool.

(1h 19m 44s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Oh, I see, yeah.

(1h 19m 49s)

Yeah.

(1h 19m 52s)

Oh, you know what?

(1h 19m 53s)

I just looked at it again on Mac.

(1h 19m 56s)

There is a new action called print documents for the Print Center app that’s separate from–

(1h 20m 2s)

the Print app. Maybe that’s why I got confused also. So you can specify which printer.

(1h 20m 4s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, okay.

(1h 20m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So that’s nice. So it is better.

(1h 20m 8s) Tim Chaten:

I see. Okay. Nice.

(1h 20m 11s) Matthew Cassinelli:

This one is also now gone. I need– I forgot to update that article.

Select Person action

(1h 20m 11s) Tim Chaten:

So there’s this new action for selecting a person.

(1h 20m 15s)

What exactly is this for?

(1h 20m 20s)

Hypothetically, what will this be for in the future?

(1h 20m 22s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I don’t know. That’s why I wrote it. I was like, it looked to be some sort of blend of the new

(1h 20m 32s)

sharing cards with Lock Center and/or I was trying to figure out, when you search for someone in Spotlight and tap on their name and it has all their fancy contact thing, I was wondering if somehow that was part of that. I think, again, we might never see this action again.

(1h 20m 51s)

That sounds like something that they were– yeah, I don’t know why they released these in the first betas. And then it just disappears. It seems like it was like, they’re like, oh, we

(1h 21m 2s)

don’t need to do that. So yeah, just I think another awkward one. It was somehow contacts-related.

(1h 21m 7s)

But again, I could see VisionOS, too, is like, they don’t have a contacts app, but you can find a person and send them something.

(1h 21m 17s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. So we didn’t get a fancy new passwords app in Iowa 17, which I think all of us wanted this to be a thing. Instead, we got an action that lets you open directly to the passwords in the settings app. And I’m sure this was probably one of the very first actions you turn into a little fake app on your home.

Passwords action

(1h 21m 38s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yes, I definitely built out open. I mean, I just use the widgets, so I have too many shortcuts to put on my all on my home screen that take me ages. I did do that at one point, and it wasn’t.

(1h 21m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Okay.

(1h 21m 43s)

Yeah.

(1h 21m 45s)

[laughs]

(1h 21m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

The widgets are a lot nicer, but yeah, totally open passwords. There is a search field, though,

(1h 21m 55s)

which is cool. So you can actually, like, I just put in, I’m always trying to open like my own Gmail thing to get the two-factor thing out, and so just pre-programming in searches to your favorite

(1h 22m 8s)

Passwords is a great way to do that.

(1h 22m 10s) Tim Chaten:

It’s interesting with that. I found it’s pretty good at being in the like,

(1h 22m 14s)

quick bar, quick type bar I think they call it, for auto-completing with the two-factor.

(1h 22m 20s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah. Yeah, I just use like Amazon and I have enough that I sign in pretty regularly. Plus during beta season, I mean, I reset my iPads like every, every few days this season because I was having a lot of issues with the widgets. And so I was signing in over and over.

(1h 22m 21s) Tim Chaten:

Oh, the non. Gotcha, yeah.

(1h 22m 37s)

• I see, gotcha.

(1h 22m 38s)

Yeah.

(1h 22m 41s)

Yeah, so you can filter down to just two factor stuff or are you searching for certain websites with that?

(1h 22m 47s) Matthew Cassinelli:

You can it just has keywords so you could put in to the notes feel of stuff to FA if you wanted to but otherwise I just found I just typed in like Amazon and I knew it was the one that I had the I Needed the two-factor for so I just built out like eight of them to fit the medium widget Kind of thing and then one that just lets me type in a certain

(1h 22m 53s) Tim Chaten:

Mm-hmm, okay. Yeah

(1h 23m 2s)

I see, gotcha.

(1h 23m 3s)

Yeah.

(1h 23m 8s)

Very cool.

(1h 23m 11s)

I’m very excited for when IO 17 officially rolls out to start using the family sharing for passwords.

(1h 23m 16s)

That’s gonna ask me powerful ’cause I’ve tried getting my family on to one password.

(1h 23m 21s)

We had the family thing and it just never takes like.

(1h 23m 24s)

Yes.

(1h 23m 25s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That’s why like these shortcuts are like you give them to your family so they can access the passwords and you don’t need it

(1h 23m 32s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, exactly.

Tips actions

(1h 23m 34s) Tim Chaten:

The tips app.

(1h 23m 37s)

I’m not sure I’ll ever use this,

(1h 23m 39s)

but I guess for accessibility, as you say.

(1h 23m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Again, so this one is also now gone, and I think should stay dead.

(1h 23m 41s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(1h 23m 46s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I don’t know why they did this.

(1h 23m 49s)

It seemed to be built off of “developers can now provide tips.”

(1h 23m 53s) Tim Chaten:

Right, yeah, that’s a big new thing for developers to help people learn your…

(1h 23m 54s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And I was wondering, this seemed to me like, again, I put on my tin foil hat and I was like, “next year, apps will be able to run shortcuts.”

(1h 24m 6s)

Because then, if you could run, if an app could…

(1h 24m 10s)

…provide a shortcut that had their tip in it,

(1h 24m 13s)

and that shortcut could automatically surface somewhere else,

(1h 24m 16s)

it would make sense.

(1h 24m 17s)

But, until somebody else can provide tips,

(1h 24m 21s)

I don’t know why I’d ever set up a shortcut to show me the tip that I already know about.

(1h 24m 27s)

Like, yeah.

(1h 24m 27s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 24m 30s) Matthew Cassinelli:

If I worked there, I’d be like, “Why are we doing this? Don’t do this.”

(1h 24m 35s)

That is just an odd one, and I agree.

(1h 24m 38s)

Again, they’re like giving it to…

(1h 24m 40s)

someone else, maybe. Or like, if somehow I could provide tips through the tips app to other people, like maybe, but again, I don’t really function.

(1h 24m 45s) Tim Chaten:

That’d be cool.

(1h 24m 46s)

Yeah.

Time Machine action

(1h 24m 51s) Tim Chaten:

So next up, the Mac on action,

(1h 24m 53s)

that makes me very jealous and kind of angry still,

(1h 24m 56s)

of starting up a time machine backup.

(1h 25m)

And we still on iPad, even these two terabyte iPads,

(1h 25m 4s)

are only able to back up to iCloud,

(1h 25m 6s)

which iCloud maxes out at two terabytes,

(1h 25m 9s)

which provides no additional space for anything else,

(1h 25m 11s)

just backing up a single device.

(1h 25m 14s)

So please Apple.

(1h 25m 15s)

Add time machine backup for some kind of local backup scenario for iPad.

(1h 25m 21s)

Cause, uh, or give us like 10 terabytes of iCloud storage, either one, you know.

(1h 25m 26s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah Yeah, I mean this one is definitely nice. I don’t I don’t really use time machine. I think iPad Maybe this is blasphemy, but something about iPad forced me to not ever use files like I use apps that have their own sync systems and so the the one thing that of course does get me is Final Cut Pro and ferrite is the actual audio

(1h 25m 37s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 25m 37s)

Hm.

(1h 25m 52s)

Oh, Ferrite. Yeah, I’ve got like a 400 gigabyte app within Ferrite.

(1h 25m 56s)

It’s, I’m terrible at archiving and offloading to like…

(1h 26m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

• Yeah, see, I think because I’ve,

(1h 26m 4s)

especially with Final Cut before I had to,

(1h 26m 6s)

I really just embraced that.

(1h 26m 8s)

And at least for podcasts, the files are small enough that most of the time it’s not an issue,

(1h 26m 14s)

but with video files, it’s just massive.

(1h 26m 16s)

But otherwise, almost everything I’ve done since,

(1h 26m 20s)

and it was because of the iPad,

(1h 26m 23s)

because you kinda couldn’t use file systems for a while,

(1h 26m 28s)

but I just kind of embraced stuff that lived out.

(1h 26m 31s)

And I think in the long run, too, I don’t know.

(1h 26m 36s)

This is maybe getting more meta than I realized we were gonna get,

(1h 26m 39s)

but shortcuts enables that,

(1h 26m 42s)

where files were the only transmutable information for data before, but now with shortcuts,

(1h 26m 51s)

I can get each row out of that spreadsheet,

(1h 26m 55s)

and I don’t need plain text for something to be portable.

(1h 26m 59s)

I need it to be shortcuts capable.

(1h 27m 1s)

And that’s why shortcuts is like the answer for me to everything because now rather than having like files, I have files and metadata associated with it and stuff that I can get in batches and do all this operations off of that.

(1h 27m 17s)

Now people are like, Oh, I need. Yeah, like Obsidian to me is like, I’m like, I do all that in Airtable and Ulysses combined across these apps rather than having one.

(1h 27m 31s)

And that is like the benefit of iPad and this whole ecosystem goes beyond where we were with computing into this whole other realm.

(1h 27m 41s)

And I feel like that’s the thing that’s missing from every iPad discussion or like shortcuts as part of this ecosystem rather than using like one app that does it all.

(1h 27m 54s)

We should this all should be working together.

(1h 28m 1s)

And I think we’re still in the middle of that transition. I think what’s been so fascinating about shortcuts is living through the proof of things take five years to happen in in like major technology shifts and in many ways shortcuts is still barely like we just got the shortcuts for Mac like two years ago.

(1h 28m 20s)

So, really pushing this whole platform forward is going to keep taking a while, but this is, I think we’re still again like going into future modes.

(1h 28m 31s)

None of this stuff with Vision Pro automation capabilities would be possible without shortcuts being as accessible as it is. So, how did I get here from Time Machine? What the heck?

(1h 28m 40s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, I have no idea, I love it.

(1h 28m 43s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I love it. But yeah, that was, I’m sorry, I just had to get that out because that was, that is like, why this ecosystem works in other people who don’t see that.

(1h 28m 44s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, one day we will have to have a full out, yeah.

(1h 28m 55s) Matthew Cassinelli:

If you don’t do this, it doesn’t work. So like, I get it.

(1h 29m) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. With the simulator with Vision OS, am I right that the Shortcuts app is not functional quite yet?

Apple Vision Pro – Shortcuts

(1h 29m 6s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. Okay. I’m very excited to, early 2024, have a special episode out of our yearly September chat of Vision OS Shortcuts and what that’s like.

(1h 29m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I don’t think so. I think it’s just shortcuts for iPad on vision.

(1h 29m 24s)

I mean, we’ll see.

(1h 29m 25s)

I think it does remain to be seen.

(1h 29m 28s)

And this was what I was trying to figure out is like,

(1h 29m 30s)

do I go there and try to make that work?

(1h 29m 33s)

Because I have the vision for what it should be.

(1h 29m 38s)

And if they’re not actively using shortcuts the way I am,

(1h 29m 43s)

are they even thinking about that?

(1h 29m 44s)

So I kind of was poking around this summer.

(1h 29m 47s)

I was like, are you guys on this?

(1h 29m 49s)

Are you making shortcuts for vision?

(1h 29m 50s)

And if not, you guys got any room at the table?

(1h 29m 51s) Tim Chaten:

[laughs]

(1h 29m 53s)

Yeah, it was encouraging that it was an app on the default, you know, whatever apps they show.

(1h 29m 54s) Matthew Cassinelli:

like sort of thing. But again, it’s still.

(1h 30m 1s)

I just want Minority Report style shortcuts.

(1h 30m 4s)

I want to throw the shortcuts around the room,

(1h 30m 7s)

and I think they’re more thinking,

(1h 30m 10s)

“You just run the shortcuts with your voice.”

(1h 30m 12s)

And I’m like, “No, I want to live in my shortcuts.”

(1h 30m 15s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, totally 3D VR version.

(1h 30m 15s) Matthew Cassinelli:

[laughs]

(1h 30m 17s)

Yeah, it’s like stack them all up next to me and be like, “Away with ye,”

(1h 30m 23s)

and throw them off to the side, so.

(1h 30m 25s) Tim Chaten:

That is the cool thing. Ken Case and I were speaking about VisionOS, and the concept of layers in 3D assets within VisionOS could be pretty cool for things like shortcuts where you have layers of actions grouped together kind of like.

(1h 30m 42s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, well, the physical metaphor to understand how a shortcut works in vision space is what I want.

(1h 30m 51s)

Like, because the linear part of it is what confuses a lot of people.

(1h 30m 56s)

And like, how can I like represent actions connecting to each other,

(1h 31m 1s)

and like outputs moving from one step to the other in a like complete visual way is like,

(1h 31m 8s)

you can really kind of see that become this like future computing.

(1h 31m 12s)

thing that makes it make a lot more sense and and then I can just grab it and set it aside and like that kind of stuff so it’s pretty it’s fascinating like that’s I think that’s where like the first day the vision Pro came out I was like whoa that looks really cool like cool Apple hardware and then that night I was like holy crap like it took a minute for it to hit me

(1h 31m 39s) Tim Chaten:

So just a storage update as we talked about Time Machine.

(1h 31m 43s)

I’m using 825 gigabytes on my one terabyte,

(1h 31m 46s)

325 of that is ferrite.

(1h 31m 48s)

And I’m gonna soon have a problem with my new transcript app by the ferrite developer.

(1h 31m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, man, you got to archive.

(1h 31m 56s) Tim Chaten:

‘Cause that’s already taking up seven gigabytes and I’ve only done two transcripts.

(1h 31m 59s)

I’m gonna be very vigilant about offloading my transcripts.

(1h 32m 4s)

Yeah.

(1h 32m 6s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Even still, you should have some sort of external,

(1h 32m 6s) Tim Chaten:

’cause…

(1h 32m 9s) Matthew Cassinelli:

like I see why you want a time machine now,

(1h 32m 10s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah. Yes. I have a sonology, so I need to do better about archiving those.

(1h 32m 10s) Matthew Cassinelli:

’cause if that has all your audio files and that’s the only backup, that’s scary.

(1h 32m 15s)

I just share them to Dropbox after I’m done and I just keep the audio files.

(1h 32m 26s) Tim Chaten:

But yeah, ferrite, that is why I’m out. It’s also part of like, oh, that’s why my iCloud’s so full,

(1h 32m 32s)

is it’s backing up this 800 gigabytes worth of data. Yeah. So the last, I believe the last new action that we know about is the ability to change the wallpaper. This is the lock screen wallpaper or the home screen or both.

Wallpaper action

(1h 32m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

-It’s a combination – So, you notice –

(1h 32m 52s)

You put in your notes.

(1h 32m 53s)

I could have sworn I was doing this before.

(1h 32m 55s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 32m 55s) Matthew Cassinelli:

You can set the wallpaper,

(1h 32m 57s)

which is different than changing it.

(1h 32m 59s)

So, the reason this changed is,

(1h 33m 1s)

there used to only be one wallpaper,

(1h 33m 3s)

and now each lock screen is combined with the wallpaper.

(1h 33m 8s)

So, like, if you can have –

(1h 33m 10s)

Like, if you use set wallpaper,

(1h 33m 12s)

it will change what the current lock screen/wallpaper situation is to your new wallpaper.

(1h 33m 18s)

But you can still have like your other one and those are tied to focus modes also.

(1h 33m 23s)

So it’s a little confusing coming from where we used to be.

(1h 33m 26s)

But basically now it’s like I have the weather wallpaper and I also have like the space one.

(1h 33m 35s)

And those are just alternates for the home screen.

(1h 33m 37s)

And I can’t set a photo to those.

(1h 33m 41s)

I mean I could use set wallpaper to switch it.

(1h 33m 44s)

But like I can’t just like that would then I’d no longer have

(1h 33m 48s)

space one so it’s kind of just like a way to switch in between them which then if they are tied to focus modes it will change your focus mode also and your home screen so this is kind of a change home screen action itself without it’s not like go to page 5 though or something also so I think again it’s a little confusing and I think they should have change page on the home screen so so that I can go to page 5 of…

(1h 34m 18s)

a specific wallpaper and like even within a focus mode because that would be like I want to do my work thing and it’s on page 3 so I can switch to the work focus mode and change which page on the page there so layers and layers of metaphors for where exactly you are but I think it’s like these wallpapers are associated with the lock screen so you’ll still maintain your lock screen widgets it would just change the artwork for it it.

(1h 34m 31s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah.

(1h 34m 48s) Matthew Cassinelli:

or no wait this will literally that would be set wallpaper change wallpaper will move to a different lock screen that has I’d have to test it with because they also like I you don’t always have to associate the lock screen with the wallpaper so that might be the one confusing thing I think most of it but like well you when you use it you go in and you select a wallpaper so like it’s pretty clear as you’re

(1h 34m 58s) Tim Chaten:

[chuckles]

(1h 35m 17s)

And that is the last new one, Diaphragm.

(1h 35m 19s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I mean, there’s other features, but I think that’s it. Let me double-check.

Improved Wait action

(1h 35m 25s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think there was something around the wait action now supposedly does work for like, multiple minutes.

(1h 35m 34s)

This was one thing that like, people try to be like, “Wait four days,” and it doesn’t work.

(1h 35m 36s) Tim Chaten:

That’s right.

(1h 35m 40s) Matthew Cassinelli:

So I think there’s, I think it’s extended, but I don’t, I personally don’t, I don’t recommend these kind of things

(1h 35m 49s) Tim Chaten:

You don’t trust it?

(1h 35m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

If you try to do two hours and it doesn’t work, you’re going to be upset.

(1h 35m 51s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah Oh good, because yeah, I did try to use that in the past and it’s so frustrating where i’m like Even waiting 10 minutes is like

(1h 35m 52s) Matthew Cassinelli:

And so like, I don’t want to recommend something that’s likely to fail, but also like a couple of minutes can work now more and things like that.

(1h 36m 6s)

Yeah, it’s like I use it when I make API requests to wait one extra second so that it doesn’t overload The thing and I think that’s kind of what it was designed for and like when it was workflow You can’t run anything in the background. So there was never this expectation that You could close the app and it would continue working But yeah, so again test it and Especially if you’re combining it with true automations, that’s

(1h 36m 28s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah.

(1h 36m 29s)

Yes.

(1h 36m 32s)

Right.

(1h 36m 33s) Matthew Cassinelli:

just like what is happening like two hours later something happened

App Intents

(1h 36m 37s) Tim Chaten:

So we’ve mentioned before,

(1h 36m 40s)

but app intents are power interactive widgets,

(1h 36m 44s)

which also power shortcuts.

(1h 36m 46s)

And then kind of ramifications here,

(1h 36m 51s)

does this mean as developers are working on these widgets,

(1h 36m 54s)

they’ll just by default have these show up in shortcuts

(1h 36m 58s)

you like to put a toggle.

(1h 37m 1s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I mean, they have control, like there’s a certain function of App Intents that will provide – App Intents is essentially another word for the actions in shortcuts, but it’s a way that they can do it outside the ecosystem.

(1h 37m 17s)

So right now on a widget, you can refresh the widget, and you would never want to provide that as a shortcut action, so they can hide it from the shortcuts app.

(1h 37m 26s)

But functionally, yes, App Intents means that if the –

(1h 37m 31s)

developers going in to adopt interactive widgets, it’s kind of like, well, you might as well do shortcuts, too, since you just built half of the functionality out of it.

(1h 37m 41s)

And so I think this is, again, Apple kind of doing this strategically where – I mean,

(1h 37m 47s)

I don’t know if it’s strategic or just functional, also not like a sneaky thing, but just by adopting interactive widgets, you’re kind of already getting into shortcuts, too, and focus mode type stuff.

(1h 37m 58s)

So hopefully it is like force not forcing

(1h 38m 1s)

but just kind of funneling developers through the shortcuts channels as well.

(1h 38m 6s)

So we should just be able to see more.

(1h 38m 8s)

And because App Intents is a more modern API than what the custom Intents and Siri stuff we had before,

(1h 38m 16s)

shortcuts will just be more powerful and built more according to what you would expect from more recent or like the most powerful actions rather than what used to be standalone Siri shortcut type things.

(1h 38m 28s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. And it’s backwards compatible, so this old stuff keeps working.

(1h 38m 31s) Matthew Cassinelli:

They have to do stuff to make it.

(1h 38m 35s)

I mean, if they still have it, it’ll keep working.

(1h 38m 38s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah.

(1h 38m 38s) Matthew Cassinelli:

But going forward, I think the interactive widgets was like,

(1h 38m 38s) Tim Chaten:

• Right, gotcha.

(1h 38m 42s) Matthew Cassinelli:

they had to redesign things to be able to take advantage of this.

(1h 38m 45s)

So it should be like, maybe they won’t prioritize it ahead of interactive widgets, but I think throughout the next year,

(1h 38m 53s)

we should see a lot more apps get more powerful shortcuts support.

(1h 38m 56s)

And just a reason to do it where they maybe didn’t last year.

(1h 39m 2s)

One of my clients didn’t have shortcuts last year and now it is like, well,

(1h 39m 6s)

we already have that interactive widgets, what do we do with app shortcuts?

(1h 39m 12s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah, that’s awesome.

watchOS

(1h 39m 14s) Tim Chaten:

And then we mentioned it briefly before,

(1h 39m 16s)

but watchOS can find apps are more independent with shortcuts.

(1h 39m 21s)

Like there are actions by watch apps that can run on the watch when you’re away from your iPhone,

(1h 39m 27s)

which is a brilliant thing.

(1h 39m 30s) Matthew Cassinelli:

-Yeah, it’s huge. I think it’s –

(1h 39m 31s)

I haven’t, again, tested this too much.

(1h 39m 34s)

I think the one weird thing is all those app shortcuts.

(1h 39m 38s)

They’re adding a feature that’s called –

(1h 39m 40s)

it’s just like Siri will intelligently match if you use a synonym phrase like “find” instead of “get.”

(1h 39m 48s)

On the phone, it’ll, like, understand that and route you to the proper app shortcut.

(1h 39m 54s)

On the watch, it does have to be exact.

(1h 39m 56s)

So I think it’s kind of like –

(1h 39m 58s)

I mean, the watch just can’t handle.

(1h 40m)

as much immediate on device processing, but it should be able to do more and more.

(1h 40m 4s)

I think this is one of those ones where I think because I do this at scale, I have a lot of trouble testing watchOS shortcuts because I need to make sure they even sync in the first place and then running it with Siri and making sure it works and like then optimizing it is that roundabout loop always just drives me nuts.

(1h 40m 25s)

And so like, I need to do more of this, but definitely the watches.

(1h 40m 30s)

This is, in general, becoming a lot more independent, and so I hope if we do get a fully independent watch, it can just kind of run shortcuts and do some more advanced stuff.

(1h 40m 43s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah for sure. Anything? We didn’t touch on they’d like to before we wrap it up.

Final Thoughts

(1h 40m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I mean, in general, I think the Mac stuff is going to be pretty interesting.

(1h 40m 55s)

I think putting the extra-large or any size shortcut widget onto your desktop is just going to make shortcuts more prevalent for people, especially just tiny little functions.

(1h 41m 7s)

Most people probably won’t have 10 widgets like me, and there’s no sort of stacking,

(1h 41m 11s)

so that’s what I would love for sure, but just making it accessible on every device in a way that I…

(1h 41m 19s)

As priority focus, I think is going to be big for shortcuts just because when you want to use something you can go find it and it’s right there.

(1h 41m 28s)

And so that is true of spotlight as well. I think that’s going to be especially for iPad and if you have a keyboard, just command space type for the thing and do it is like a perfect experience.

(1h 41m 40s)

I just don’t use spotlight on the Mac, so I should more because just writing my shortcuts there is great too.

(1h 41m 49s)

Overall, I think the automation thing is going to be a big feature too. It’s just going to let you use shortcuts without using it. Like you don’t have to try, it just works. And so people always love that as well.

(1h 42m 1s)

So in some ways, it always feels like this with shortcuts, but it’s almost like a reset where now the app works like you expect it and you can kind of get your expectations fulfilled rather than going in and maybe be being disappointed at that point.

(1h 42m 19s)

They really just need to have those camera controls, man. All those little functions are the things that people want. We all know how to do the basic stuff.

(1h 42m 24s) Tim Chaten:

Yeah, and the stage manager over to the…

(1h 42m 29s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, exactly. Stage manager would be huge too. So I think there is some, it seems like clearly low hanging fruit that they could add in and kind of fill those remaining gaps. And then it’s like, I think it’s, I don’t know, like the, the iPad has gotten so many pros.

(1h 42m 49s)

There’s no features, but the software hasn’t in the way that we pros need it. And so iPadOS and shortcuts in particular are the opportunities to fulfill those roles for power users in the way that they really need them and can’t otherwise get it done on the operating system at all.

(1h 43m 9s)

And that’s what makes the iPad, something that’s both for the everyday user and the pro user way more than a Mac is where they can’t use it for their every day.

(1h 43m 19s)

Or maybe they can, but they just don’t want to. And the iPad is just fun to use too. So I felt like I just gave a little speech. I’m always, that’s the perfect thing for podcasts. That was like, just get it all out at once.

(1h 43m 29s) Tim Chaten:

That was fun. That was good. Yeah. No, I’ve enjoyed the chat. I always enjoy catching up with you.

(1h 43m 38s)

So far, it’s been once a year, but I do think next January, as they release it early 2024,

(1h 43m 45s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Hey, if we get–

(1h 43m 46s)

man, that’s why I was–

(1h 43m 53s)

to get the iPad review unit, I was like,

(1h 43m 56s)

this might be perfect timing.

(1h 43m 57s)

Hey, you guys need shortcuts on the vision.

(1h 43m 59s)

I need to test it.

(1h 44m)

You really need me to test it, I think.

(1h 44m 2s) Tim Chaten:

Absolutely. Yeah, I do wonder if they’ll optimize the app for launch or if that’ll be like a VisionOS 2 thing in the summer.

(1h 44m 3s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That’s for your sake.

(1h 44m 16s)

Yeah, I’m going to have to –

(1h 44m 18s)

My corporate hat is going to say it’ll take a minute to get right.

(1h 44m 22s)

‘Cause if you really are doing it fully, you got to give it time.

(1h 44m 28s) Tim Chaten:

You remember WatchOS 1 was available for like three months before 2 shipped.

(1h 44m 32s)

So yeah, it’ll be interesting that they’ll ship VisionOS 1 in, you know, spring or late winter or whatever. And then we’ll have the beta for VisionOS 2 probably just a couple months later with the summer beta.

(1h 44m 49s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Man, I can’t imagine filing shortcuts feedback for VisionOS.

(1h 44m 54s)

Oh, here, replicate this.

(1h 44m 56s) Tim Chaten:

[laughing]

(1h 44m 57s) Matthew Cassinelli:

That’ll be interesting. (laughs)

(1h 44m 58s) Tim Chaten:

Well, where can people dig into your shortcuts catalog and–

Where can people find your work?

(1h 45m 7s) Matthew Cassinelli:

MatthewCassinelli.com is where everything is located.

(1h 45m 10s)

I’ve got the shortcuts library and everything all in the menu bar.

(1h 45m 16s)

The membership is $15 every three months and then $50 a year.

(1h 45m 21s)

And yeah, I’ve got a new membership podcast and tons of content coming.

(1h 45m 25s)

I’ve been a little slow over the summer ’cause I’ve been building this stuff out,

(1h 45m 28s)

but I’ve always have endless projects going forward.

(1h 45m 29s) Tim Chaten:

• Yeah.

(1h 45m 33s) Matthew Cassinelli:

I think that’s been why I switched to OmniFocus.

(1h 45m 37s)

Super helpful, but yeah.

(1h 45m 38s)

Otherwise just sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get all the content.

(1h 45m 42s)

I’m doing it currently every two weeks.

(1h 45m 45s) Tim Chaten:

Okay. Very cool. And I love the every three month thing. That’s like a nice change from the monthly subscriptions. Like, okay, every three months.

(1h 45m 52s) Matthew Cassinelli:

Yeah, like something about monthly made it felt like I was trying to like Just like do each month rather than get good shortcuts And I didn’t I got kind of into that rat race So I sort of shifted things out now But summer is always a good time to do that and there’s so much shortcuts opportunity at all times. So Yeah, thank you.

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