10 Apple Shortcut Hacks Every iPhone User Should Know ...Middle East

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The Shortcuts app for iOS was introduced all the way back in 2018, and in the years since, more and more shortcuts have become available—both added by Apple and shared by Shortcuts users. Shortcuts, in case you've never used the app, essentially lets you put together mini apps that connect a trigger (like a time of day or a button push) with an action (like opening an app or turning off wifi). With a vast number of triggers and actions available, there are lots of potential possibilities here.

The best way to explain how Shortcuts works is to give you a few examples of what it can do, and how these little connectivity tools can help you do more with your iPhone. Here are 10 picks that show off the power of Shortcuts.

If you've got an iPhone with an Action button, then you probably know you can customize what it does via the Action Button entry in iOS Settings. With the Shortcuts app, though, you can extend the Action Button's capabilities further, and set up multiple different combinations using other keys as well.

Add Multi-shortcut Action Button to Shortcuts, then assign it to the Action Button. With that done, press and hold the Action Button, and tap the volume up key once, twice, or three times—each combination creates a new shortcut.

Dive into the Multi-shortcut Action Button configuration page (via the three dots on its entry in the Shortcuts gallery), and you can match volume key presses to other shortcuts—playing podcasts, sending messages, or whatever you want to do. You've now got a lot more functionality from your iPhone's Action Button.

Use News Report AI to get your news right in Notes

With News Report AI added to Apple Shortcuts, you've got yourself an easier and cleaner way of catching up on the day's news without having to venture on to the wilds of the web. Essentially, it turns the RSS feed(s) of your choice into separate entries in Apple Notes.

You'll need to do some configuring here of the RSS feed addresses, via the three dots on the shortcut in the gallery (you can duplicate the shortcut if you need more), but then when you run it you get the latest news stories (and short AI summaries) right in Notes.

Save X video clips with this shortcut

There may be times when you're browsing the sprawling social media platform that is X, and you want to save a video you've come across. That's not especially easy in the X app or the X mobile site, but it's easy with the Download X Videos shortcut.

Once you've added it to Shortcuts, the easiest way to use Download X Videos is to pin it to the iOS share sheet (just choose Edit Actions the next time it appears). You can then tap the share button in the X app to find Download X Videos and save clips.

Some of the best shortcuts you can create are related to Apple Music, and MusicBot is a fine example. It offers multiple features every time you activate the shortcut, from surfacing recently added music in your library to controlling playback on AirPlay 2 devices.

You can create smart mixes to rediscover tunes you've forgotten about or hear your top songs of the year so far, quickly add songs to playlists, clear your queue with a tap, and dig into your most favorite albums, for example.

All of this requires some configuration, so that MusicBot knows the playlists you want to use, but it doesn't take long: You'll be asked a few questions when you first set up the shortcut, and can make edits later by tapping the three dots on the shortcut in the gallery.

Save Current Location will log where you are

There are all kinds of reasons why you might want to save your current location: You want to remember where you parked the car, or where the best fishing spot is, or how far you've walked on a certain day, and the Save Current Location shortcut has you covered here.

Run the shortcut, and your current position on the planet is logged in an Apple Note or copied to the clipboard depending on how you set it up. It's easy and quick, and can be combined with automatic triggers (like a time of day) to make it even more useful.

Out of the box, your iPhone has settings for warning you about a low battery and saving as much battery life as possible, but the Low Battery Announcement levels up what's possible, and gives you alerts that can be more precisely customized.

Specifically, it calls on ChatGPT to let you customize both the battery warning message and the voice it's read in to tell you what's happening with your battery.

Combine this with battery level triggers from the Automation tab in Shortcuts, and you're able to have your iPhone say anything you like when your battery level reaches any point you like—you can set up all the warnings you need about recharging.

Shazam & Save listens for what's playing

This isn't a shortcut you need to download from the web: You'll find it in the Gallery tab of the Shortcuts app. Once you've got it added, every time you launch it your iPhone will listen out for what's playing, and add the song to your Apple Music library.

It's a good example of how shortcuts can expand on what iOS already offers—in this case, the Shazam-powered music identification capabilities. Having the song also added to your library means you're not to forget about it.

Personalize your post-morning-alarm routine

As well as adding pre-built shortcuts, you can create your own. Tap the + (plus) button on the Library tab to build shortcuts (what you want to happen), and the + (plus) button on the Automation tab if you want the shortcut to run automatically based on a certain trigger. Shortcuts can always be run manually too.

Here's one idea: Rather than just dismissing your morning alarm and that being the end of it, why not have your favorite morning playlist and directions to the office pop up automatically (so you can see how bad the traffic is)?

When you create your shortcut, combine the Music > Play Music and Maps > Get Travel Time actions, filling in the specifics as prompted. You can then combine the shortcut with the Alarm > Is Stopped automation.

You can set up a shortcut to alert you that your iPhone battery level is low when you're leaving home—giving you the chance to take a charger with you and avoid having a dead phone on your hands in a few hours.

There are a few ways to do this: For your main shortcut, combining the Get Battery Status and Show Alert actions is perhaps the simplest option (using the battery status variable as the content of the alert).

That shortcut can then be connected to the Leave > Home option on the Automation tab, and customized further as needed: You can set it to only run between certain times of day, for example.

Run specific actions in your car

One of the other options you'll see on the Automation tab is CarPlay: It means you can have specific actions run whenever you're in your vehicle, and your iPhone has connected to a CarPlay dashboard.

Again, there are lots of possibilities. One idea would be to use the Podcasts > Play Podcasts and Weather > Get Weather Forecast actions here, so that you've got your audio listening covered and know the weather conditions to expect on your drive.

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