Shortcuts app gets booster dose of Apple Intelligence to improve productivity

Apple introduced Shortcuts (formerly Workflow) with iOS 12 in 2018 to improve the user experience on its products. In the following year, it was made a default app with the iOS 13 update. It allowed users to automate mundane tasks that involved multiple steps across multiple apps, into a single tap action of the on-screen button or through voice command to Siri digital assistant.

The Shortcuts app, which is now available on iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, will soon get Apple Intelligence capabilities to further simplify the automation of tasks and improve productivity.

Users will be able to make good use of Apple Intelligence models for the Shortcuts app, either on-device or with cloud server connectivity, in addition to ChatGPT.

Further, device owners can also take advantage of dedicated actions for Writing Tools and Image Playground to summarise text or generate new images.

Also, Shortcuts app has been enabled to work seamlessly on most third-party apps and also, and it can be summoned not just on the home screen, but also by action buttons on the latest iPhone models and even with a squeezing gesture on the Pencil Pro to perform an action.

Here are some use cases of the AI-powered Shortcuts app:

Take, for instance, a student can build a shortcut that uses the Apple Intelligence model to compare an audio transcription of a class lecture to the notes they took, and add any key points they may have missed. Users can also choose to tap into ChatGPT to provide responses that feed into their shortcut.

Shorcuts app can be used to match voice notes with written notes.

In other instances, users can create a shortcut action, which involves sharing a fun GIF with friends. This process requires the user to pick a set of photos from the Photos app and stitch them to make a GIF, and then open the Messages app. With the help of Writing Tools, he/she can create a standard text template and send it to a closed group of friends.

For the first time, the user has to detail the actions in the Shortcuts app and name them. Once it is set, the Shortcut task can be placed on the home screen and with a single tap, all the actions are performed instantly. Also, users can ask Siri to perform the actions with a single command.

All the data of the Shortcuts app is fully protected by Apple's robust security system. Even the complex AI-powered tasks which require cloud server connectivity are safeguarded by Private Cloud Compute.

For the uninitiated, Private Cloud Compute is Apple's propreitary technology. For image generation and other complex queries, Apple devices will connect with Private Cloud Compute servers powered by Apple silicon. All private conversations with Apple Intelligence relayed between a cloud server and the device remain anonymous at all times. No entity, including Apple, can access it.

The new features of Shortcuts app will be introduced with the iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe later this year.

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