Shortcuts
Apple's built-in automation app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch
Shortcuts assembles actions into a workflow. You run it from the home screen, the share sheet, Siri, a widget, or an automation that fires on a time, a location or a Focus mode. Actions cover the system apps plus whatever third-party developers choose to expose. Two uses come up again and again. One is collapsing a sequence of taps you repeat daily into a single button. The other is replacing app icons with buttons that do one job rather than opening a place to get lost in.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- David SparksDoes it
Apple productivity writer · MacSparky
His iPhone home screen holds Shortcuts rather than app icons, built from Choose from Menu actions and SF Symbols glyphs. Tapping the megaphone opens a list of messaging apps, so unread badges never reach him. The aim, he says, is doing actions with the device instead of launching apps.
Source: MacSparky: My Super Boring (and Super Useful) iPhone Home Screen - Federico ViticciDoes it
Apple writer · founder of MacStories
Rewrote the Apple Frames shortcut by hand for version 4, cutting it from more than 800 actions to roughly 300. Hundreds of conditional steps came out in favor of a single JSON lookup. He says the rebuild made it faster to run and easier for him to maintain.
Source: MacStories: Introducing Apple Frames 4
Aimed at the same thing
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DEVONthink
DEVONtechnologies
Document and information manager for Mac and iOS with local, indexed databases
On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it
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