On Tuesday, Apple published the release notes for Shortcut in iOS 16.3 – the only new feature other than update actions is a new “Allow Running While Locked” toggle:

This update includes a new checkbox in the Shortcuts editor’s Privacy tab that allows users to disable a shortcut from being run while the device is locked[...]

This was published just after releasing the security update to IOS 16.3.1 – I linked to the release notes (and past versions) over on my blog:

The folks over at iDownloadBlog wrote up a piece on the features too, including a few screenshots of the Allow Running While Locked toggle:

That feature also made even more sense when, on Thursday, Apple released the first beta for iOS 16.4 and, with it, an action for Lock Screen (among others).

r/Shortcuts moderator u/@iBanks3 has been collecting them all:

• Silence Unkown Callers
• Set Stage Manager
• Set True Tone
• Set Announce Notifications
• Shut Down
• Lock Screen
• Set Always on Display
• Intercom
• Set VPN
• Set Airdrop Receiving
• Set Night Shift
• Auto-Answer Calls

The folks at SmartApfel also wrote up a piece on the HomePod intercom feature, something that’s definitely unique for folks who have Apple’s smart speakers and might not’ve taken advantage of this feature often yet (like myself).

One thing you might miss about this action? It's available in Home Automations too:

Colin Hughes published this piece about the Auto-Answer Calls feature, something he's been wanting for years.

If you ask me, this definitive proof that filing Feedback to Apple for features you want to see does actually work... you’re just operating on Apple’s timeline:

Plus, the ever-eagle-eyed Shortcuts community noticed even more little features, like changes to how the Replace Text action works…

...or, how shortcuts can now toggle between the Custom Icon that you set manually vs. the auto-generated icon for the shortcut based on the action.

For example, I’m seeing Safari for shortcuts that end in Open URL, for example; Martin here must’ve been using a shortcut that interacted with Shortcuts itself.

Mark Van Alstine has also been gathering feedback about Share Sheet issues for folks who use Shortcuts.

I know I regularly see my list of shortcuts drop out, or the whole sheet has memory issues and app icons don't appear – this appears to be a bit better in iOS 16.4, but I do have almost 400 share sheet shortcuts across my entire giant library and it's still stuttering under that weight:

Finally, over the weekend, I also saw Apple Engineering Manager Michael Gorbach post a link to a new protocol available as part of the App Intents APIs that lets developers foreground their process when needed – I linked to all the details on my blog:

In the first piece, I wrote about the Get Component of URL action and how you can use it with Mastodon links to scrape the Instance and Handle data out using Shortcuts.

This is a foundational piece that's free to the public, which the other stories reference and build off of:

Next was the main function I was trying to achieve — extracting List data from Mastodon, letting me pick from all my Lists, and then opening onto the direct page for a single List.

Thankfully, the API wasn't too complicated – and I'll be able to reuse this new process I've created as a function in my other shortcuts:

Once you've got your List shortcut, you'll also want to save all the accounts you follow to those Lists.

However, Mastodon limits on which pages you're allowed to add people, so I built this shortcut that works with any URL – it even detects which Lists the account might already belong to:

While building my Save to Lists shortcut, I came across another methodology for Mastodon that I wanted to make freely available – using the Lookup Account endpoint.

With this, you can take links from any Mastodon instance and return the universal ID for that account – which you can then pass to the Mastodon API for functions like "Get lists containing this account":

Finally, the carrot at the end of the stick: I built all these methods just so I could open my Lists in Ivory.

I had originally discovered the URL scheme from a helpful hint, and set out to build off of the Mastodon API and automatically generate my deep links.

Then, once I completed my folder of shortcuts, I worked backwards and teased out all of these blog posts separately.

Once I got to the Ivory story, I also wanted to explain the various stages of building out from a single reformatted link to a link scraper to a link menu to a link dictionary to an API-generated link list – it's a piece I'll likely reference often.

You'll want to read all the blog posts to get the full effect (everything's linked internally in this Ivory story), plus you should get the Mastodon Lists shortcuts to try the shortcuts for yourself as you read along.

This week, I saw this tweet from Chuck Grimmett sharing his collection of shortcuts for Micropub posting (from a supported website).

I’m not intimately familiar with the Micropub API, but these will definitely be a good reference when I get to that point:

Sridfhar Katakam shared his blog post where he explained how he's used Shortcuts + Alfred + Craft together.

Alfred controls the whole workflow and calls Shortcuts when the key trigger is activated – then the shortcuts power features like accessing the Daily Note in Craft:

This post from 1 Thing A Week resonated with me – it covers how Mastodon is significantly easier to work with in Shortcuts than any other social network.

In case you can't tell from what I've produced so far this year, he's right — I'd have loved to do this all for Twitter, but it was never accessible to me in Shortcuts since it required deeper authorization.

Now, with Mastodon, there's virtually no limits — I'm still just getting started:

Aaron Rogers on Twitter (not that one) made this short guide on YouTube for how to use the Accessibility Shortcut that Apple provides in the Gallery – I love his Animoji presentation ☺️

I came across this 6-minute video from Mac Vince walking you through all the benefits of using Shortcuts on Apple Watch. 

In it, he shows you how to set it up, plus demos shortcuts like adding to Notes, logging Health data, and controlling HomeKit – nice 👌:

SENTINELITE has shared a thread about the progress of his Shortcuts plugin for Stream Deck, including some interesting stats:

• 50% are on macOS Ventura
• 70% are on Apple Silicon
• 787 folks are using the Stream Deck Mini (including me!)

He also mentioned working on version 2 – I'm looking forward to it 🙇🏻‍♂️:

Francisco Yira has shared a thread where he walks through three Shortcuts-enabled apps—Stay In Session, One Sec, and Endel—to power his "productivity" stack that he uses daily.

Pomodoros, app automations, and generative soundscapes definitely work for me — check out his suggestions:

The folks at Flexibits have posted on their blog about their app Fantastical's new App Shortcuts.

In it, they cover how to find their App Shortcuts, which actions are auto-generated for you, and how to take advantage of the Fantatical actions to build your own custom shortcuts:

Ivan Campos posted this great little video where he uses Raycast's URL raycast://confetti to make an explosion of confetti on his screen.

In his action, he's using Run Script over SSH to execute the URL, but Open URLs in Shortcuts could also achieve the same result on a local Mac:

David Blue has shared a shortcut for Mac that builds of ffmpeg to resize videos before uploading them to Mastodon – very nice:

Martin has shared a version of his hashtag manager that makes it easy to group up lists of commonly-used tags and retrieve them for your posts:

Thibault Maekelbergh (holy cow what a cool name) has shared a dedicated page on website that houses all of his Shortcuts.

On it, he shares a few shortcuts like Flatten Folder, Scale Image to 50%, and File to Shell – check out the full list:

Following up from last issue, Derek has replied explaining how he plans to manipulate iOS bundles using Shortcuts:

Mastodon user Maradatscha shared this shortcut that taps into the Open Weather API, which he's also set up using Personal Automations.

Technically, this could also be done in Home Automations using the Get Contents of URL action too:

Aday, an App Interaction Designer at Brainly, has shared a quick video demoing his trip prep and packing list shortcuts, built for OmniFocus:

Paul Douglas shared this sentiment on Mastodon that I fully agree with – Shortcuts is built to fill the gaps between your apps.

If you're ever running into a situation where you can't access a feature you should be able to... consider turning to Shortcuts as a way to get around that blocker and reach your goal.

Slava Grimalsky shared this other sentiment that I also think highlights a vastly underrated benefit of working in Shortcuts — many tools you build are immediately cross-platform:

Apple's Shortcuts are super powerful, and I did not expect that scenario I built will run both in MacBook and iPhone with the same result.

Here's the Extract Text to Notes shortcut he built:

@Mal_loc shared this tweet that caught my eye, because I'm basically prototyping new "app ideas" constantly.

But for me, they've just become "Shortcuts ideas" – I often don't need an app when I've got my own shortcuts for the same thing:

In a helpful thread about dealing with brain fog, @TheLifePuzzler shared this tip for Shortcuts users (for post-shower idea capture):

Pro documentation tip: Set up a quick capture for voice recordings or notes with the Shortcuts app on iPhone. This way you can capture voice by tapping on the back of your phone when having wet hands.

This tweet from @profoundlyeric also caught my eye – ChatGPT actually recommend using Shortcuts to generate QR codes, a tip which is otherwise apparently buried on Google:

@SaadSorathia has discovered reordering from Starbucks using Shortcuts, and, if you haven't yet, you should try it too.

Even better, order something for a friend, then easily reorder their favorite next time you see them 🙌

Jason Straughan has discovered the power of extracting the video from a Live Photo and converting it to a GIF – perfect for pet pics like this:

Twitter user @SlowBeef (love it) has posted their seemingly first shortcut ever – and it's a great cross-posting tool for Twitter & Mastodon.

I love building quick shortcuts like this on my iPhone in my downtime too – and I've been forgetting to post to Twitter lately, so I may need to make my own...

I agree with @simonhamp on Twitter that it's time for Shortcuts to get actions that control all the options available in the Settings app.

One of the most common sentiments that I've seen since the app become Shortcuts is confusion over why Apple's own automation app can't control particular settings controls.

I really hope this is something we'll see at WWDC this year with a concentrated effort – if not, a steady stream of releases—like the new actions in iOS 16.4—are certainly welcome as well.

In a slightly more colorful request, @mikesuszek (and many other Twitter users who I don't link to each week) suggests that Apple will get rid of the notification banners from Shortcuts.

Also, for what it's worth, the banners are much less obtrusive on iPhone 14 Pro devices – that being said, whether or not this experience sucks absolutely should not be determined by a hardware upgrade.