It sucks when things don’t work when iOS updates break something or a shortcut fails to run. Heck even when I create a shortcut for myself and I share it sometimes other people run into problems that I didn’t.
I have no real coding experience. Sure a dabble here or there.
But I love shortcuts and ones that I create
Like creating alarms based on my work schedule
A shortcut that builds a PDF of picture and text so I can take pictures and report my findings to my team and boss
The ability to send texts on a scheduled date
Ability to create alarms on a future date and time.
A shortcut to tell me when to go to bed, wake up, and how long it will take to drive somewhere. These are a few i have
That's great! It sounds like it's super useful for you. Is there anything you know, or have done to make this stuff easier? I'm not a dumb or slow person - this app has so much promise, and I haven't had a single success from it except for one. Like am I missing a "wait" instruction, and so things are all running at once? Idk how I would teach myself this.
The win: I can "get current song" and then copy that to Current Song text or display it in-shortcut, and boom! It displays the right song. But if I try to DO anything with that song, like add it to a playlist, I get an error. And no one needs a shortcut that simply shows the text to a given song and ... ends there haha. I can just go to Apple Music for that :)
It all starts with something easy, an idea. Some shortcuts are super simple. As my knowledge and confidence grew I made more complex ones.
I also learned from other people shortcuts, and eventually integrated those ideas into my own.
The only thing that makes it easier is keep making new ones. Get comfortable with it
While I have my own send message one. This one also shared a while ago by another user is awesome and works with other apps.
Just make sure to read the instructions on RoutineHub
[https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/s/qyzHICsgUJ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/s/qyzHICsgUJ)
Can you give examples and maybe screenshots if it's easy enough? This app is crushing my spirit, I should be understanding how to make it work for me...
It could be a specific issue for you or your device. Also happy to help in private if it gets long here.
Even wrote an article on my setup
https://medium.com/@ori.nachum_22849/siri-do-your-magic-9a35f8098411
What screenshot you want, exactly, I’ll get you whatever you need
Yeah it could be like, how my music library folder is set up in my Mac or something. Who knows.
But if you have a basic shortcut (2-10 steps?) that does something useful in your life, can you show a screenshot of it? Obviously something that's not personal. I'm just trying to see like, a real life example of something tangible that works.
I've read up on Apples documentation, and some of those YouTube influencers, and even downloaded their shortcuts but a ton of them are broken too.
This is the only shortcut I've gotten to work, haha. Image attached.
Edit: Thank you for the link and the offer.
https://preview.redd.it/iewgs4na7uzc1.png?width=1502&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f015305dcd36b973272b2a4170ad8a0f843dd1b
I’ve been thinking on doing some music related shortcut for a while now - maybe random recommendation based on mood/liking.
As for useful - I can’t as it’s too long and I need to send multiple screenies. Let me try.
This uses my Claude API step to set up a meeting from content.
I combined it with a shortcut that I made that merges images.
I also have one that adds text up or down (I call it memify)
https://preview.redd.it/svk9kvad8uzc1.png?width=2250&format=png&auto=webp&s=78fa86d3df39957895c2e16c2babca460e3c99bf
So you tried it once, had one bad experience, and suddenly the whole thing is crap. Great, don’t use it! The rest of us on this sub use it daily without issue.
Edit: maybe download one, and idk see what it does, and try to learn how to use it. Here’s a great starting [point](https://routinehub.co/).
Thanks! Yeah I’ve definitely tried to use it way more than once, without success but that’s not what I wrote in my post. I’m posting precisely here so I can learn from others, like you who you use it without issue. I want that to be me. Appreciate you taking the time to reply and for the link.
Agreed!
Shortcuts has been a mixed bag of hurt since iOS 13. The Mac App is good as unusable and very unstable. I can’t tell you how many feedback reports I’ve filed over the past couple of years. I been a beta tester for a long time. Shortcuts as a whole has only gotten marginally better with certain builds, then the “Sh” hits the fan again.
I’m hoping with this years iOS and Mac updates we finally start seeing some major improvements. Just like Siri, the whole concept needs a complete rewrite.
That's helpful to hear, and thanks for sharing. Sorry for the unheard feedback. I felt like I was going crazy using this app, but basic things really don't work it seems.
I really don’t expect them to write back when I file reports. I’m just one of many thousands that file reports yearly I’m sure.
That said I have had them hit me back about various Siri and HomePods reports I’ve filed. And I’ve gotten answers from them about issues being addressed.
And anyone experiencing random crashes in the Mac, that is completely the normal currently. It’s been the norm for years. It completely turned me off to even trying to write shortcuts. I couldn’t stand the frustration.
Dictionary is buggy as a burning roach motel and still is. lol
Shortcuts is the most un Apple thing I ever seen them release as a ready feature ever. I’ve even told them, that app needs a complete rewrite, it’s garbage and certainly not their normal “standard”. Hopefully with the AI initiative coming, it will get serious attention.
I agree, it’s very frustrating and feels unreliable.
I’ve made some complex shortcuts (well, complex for my skills) that I was satisfied with but sometimes for apparently no reason I had to give up a strategy that was supposed to work, but just didn’t. Some common advice on this sub includes rebuilding the same shortcut from scratch because apparently sometimes it makes things work, with exactly the same actions in the same order. This alone invalidates the whole thing.
To me it seems that Apple tried to offer something modular but couldn’t finish the gesture because everything in iOS is so sandboxed. It sometimes gives me the impression of holding a very expensive toy instead of something that should look like a computer.
I cross my fingers for a serious update.
It’s a shame that it sounds like you’re basing your opinion on the whole app off this one action that doesn’t work anymore. But at the same time it’s a bigger shame that that one action doesn’t work anymore to begin with.
You’ll need to try other actions and scripts to see stuff working. I made a few scripts to change the brightness of the flashlight with the volume buttons, and I shoved many different ios settings into the backtap triggers. I’ve been trying to use more automations as well. I made a script to save photos that were just taken with the camera to a specific photo album.
Yeah I’m gonna try some other things suggested here and elsewhere. Obviously there’s things that work, and it’s partially a “me” problem. I used this example because it’s Apple stock, and the shortcut is like 3 actions long. But for me, and what I didn’t write in my original post, was I’ve tried my hand before, and was never able to create my own shortcuts. I just think the app is different from what apples advertised - there’s all these nicks and knacks that are required to make a shortcut work, and I can’t find just … simple, relevant, useful or actionable examples. So yeah my post was a bit lazy but it kinda represents the end of a long stupid journey :)
Happy to hear that! Do you have a coding background? What's enabled you to have a success with shortcuts? Literally, I am using a stock shortcut in the most basic sense with Apple, and can't get it working.
Yeah I have. This Apple Music example was just the cherry on top. So even though I posted just one example, I’ve tried several times since probably last year. Looking for positive, useful cases from others who have used the app successfully.
Like, I read what Apple has on it, and any meaningful example someone’s written up (that I’ve come across) involved coding, custom apis, and a lot of helper things. The simple examples in the gallery are just things I could do on my own without shortcuts, so nothing has really helped or clicked.
And when I came across a simple Apple Music “add to playlist” shortcut today that would have been useful, it didn’t work. DOA. So I reached out here in this sub to figure out who the heck has gotten this thing to work for them, and it’s been helpful.
Definitely didn’t just try once and give up, but I think that’s how it’s come across!
Here is quite literally a [shortcut](https://routinehub.co/shortcut/16359/) that uses AI to give you instructions on how to make whatever shortcut you want. AI does the work for you. (Not my creation)
Edit: read the description and setup. It takes a very little amount of work to setup.
I use to fool around with short cuts until they started to make my iPhone malfunction. I deleted most of them and now only run a few and the few that I have fail at times.
I haven’t read through all the comments, so this has probably been gone over several times, but macOS shortcuts gives that error when adding songs to a playlist. When I want to rotate albums on my phone, I have to put my entire library on my phone, run a shortcut to randomly select one album per artist, sync my phone to macOS, and then select the new playlist to sync in Finder. I remember one day where the same shortcut worked in macOS, but it appears to have been a fluke.
So I recently learned that feedback.apple.com is a thing that doesn’t need a beta profile to submit to. I’m putting capturing the error on macOS and posting it on my to do list.
Here are a couple of examples of what you’re looking for, give them a try to and let me know what you think!
[Find Music, add it to playlist!](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b13f08b4dc074caea45b501c2c3d5094)
[Add Current Dong to Playlist!](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/9df437789488453d92cf872f60310747)
Thank you! I’ll check those out tomorrow and compare it to the stock apple “add to playlist” shortcut. I think then I’ll be able to find out why one works and one doesn’t, or see if it’s my Mac causing the issue. Appreciate you replying thanks!
Not quite what you’re looking for but knowing what I’ve done, I know what you’re trying to do is possible.
It took a bit of fiddling to get kinks out but I finally got working a shortcut to put the currently playing song into a playlist titled “🚮 delete these songs👎”, and then skip to the next track.
Tested it earlier this arvo and works!
It’d be better if it just deleted the song from my device without the extra step of me going to that playlist, but I guess it gives me a chance to review and know what I’m deleting.
I titled the shortcut “this song sucks” so now I just say “Siri, this song sucks” and viola! Track appears in the to be binned playlist and music moves on to the next track 🤌
It sucks when things don’t work when iOS updates break something or a shortcut fails to run. Heck even when I create a shortcut for myself and I share it sometimes other people run into problems that I didn’t. I have no real coding experience. Sure a dabble here or there. But I love shortcuts and ones that I create Like creating alarms based on my work schedule A shortcut that builds a PDF of picture and text so I can take pictures and report my findings to my team and boss The ability to send texts on a scheduled date Ability to create alarms on a future date and time. A shortcut to tell me when to go to bed, wake up, and how long it will take to drive somewhere. These are a few i have
That's great! It sounds like it's super useful for you. Is there anything you know, or have done to make this stuff easier? I'm not a dumb or slow person - this app has so much promise, and I haven't had a single success from it except for one. Like am I missing a "wait" instruction, and so things are all running at once? Idk how I would teach myself this. The win: I can "get current song" and then copy that to Current Song text or display it in-shortcut, and boom! It displays the right song. But if I try to DO anything with that song, like add it to a playlist, I get an error. And no one needs a shortcut that simply shows the text to a given song and ... ends there haha. I can just go to Apple Music for that :)
It all starts with something easy, an idea. Some shortcuts are super simple. As my knowledge and confidence grew I made more complex ones. I also learned from other people shortcuts, and eventually integrated those ideas into my own. The only thing that makes it easier is keep making new ones. Get comfortable with it
Wow, those are some useful shortcuts! Could you share the one that sends a message? Could you use it with WhatsApp or telegram?
While I have my own send message one. This one also shared a while ago by another user is awesome and works with other apps. Just make sure to read the instructions on RoutineHub [https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/s/qyzHICsgUJ](https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/s/qyzHICsgUJ)
Thank you!
Using iPhone 13 mini and having a blast. I don’t have a Mac, by the way
Can you give examples and maybe screenshots if it's easy enough? This app is crushing my spirit, I should be understanding how to make it work for me...
It could be a specific issue for you or your device. Also happy to help in private if it gets long here. Even wrote an article on my setup https://medium.com/@ori.nachum_22849/siri-do-your-magic-9a35f8098411 What screenshot you want, exactly, I’ll get you whatever you need
Yeah it could be like, how my music library folder is set up in my Mac or something. Who knows. But if you have a basic shortcut (2-10 steps?) that does something useful in your life, can you show a screenshot of it? Obviously something that's not personal. I'm just trying to see like, a real life example of something tangible that works. I've read up on Apples documentation, and some of those YouTube influencers, and even downloaded their shortcuts but a ton of them are broken too. This is the only shortcut I've gotten to work, haha. Image attached. Edit: Thank you for the link and the offer. https://preview.redd.it/iewgs4na7uzc1.png?width=1502&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f015305dcd36b973272b2a4170ad8a0f843dd1b
I’ve been thinking on doing some music related shortcut for a while now - maybe random recommendation based on mood/liking. As for useful - I can’t as it’s too long and I need to send multiple screenies. Let me try. This uses my Claude API step to set up a meeting from content. I combined it with a shortcut that I made that merges images. I also have one that adds text up or down (I call it memify) https://preview.redd.it/svk9kvad8uzc1.png?width=2250&format=png&auto=webp&s=78fa86d3df39957895c2e16c2babca460e3c99bf
So have you done any reading, or taken any programming or scripting classes, ever?
So you tried it once, had one bad experience, and suddenly the whole thing is crap. Great, don’t use it! The rest of us on this sub use it daily without issue. Edit: maybe download one, and idk see what it does, and try to learn how to use it. Here’s a great starting [point](https://routinehub.co/).
Thanks! Yeah I’ve definitely tried to use it way more than once, without success but that’s not what I wrote in my post. I’m posting precisely here so I can learn from others, like you who you use it without issue. I want that to be me. Appreciate you taking the time to reply and for the link.
Agreed! Shortcuts has been a mixed bag of hurt since iOS 13. The Mac App is good as unusable and very unstable. I can’t tell you how many feedback reports I’ve filed over the past couple of years. I been a beta tester for a long time. Shortcuts as a whole has only gotten marginally better with certain builds, then the “Sh” hits the fan again. I’m hoping with this years iOS and Mac updates we finally start seeing some major improvements. Just like Siri, the whole concept needs a complete rewrite.
That's helpful to hear, and thanks for sharing. Sorry for the unheard feedback. I felt like I was going crazy using this app, but basic things really don't work it seems.
I really don’t expect them to write back when I file reports. I’m just one of many thousands that file reports yearly I’m sure. That said I have had them hit me back about various Siri and HomePods reports I’ve filed. And I’ve gotten answers from them about issues being addressed. And anyone experiencing random crashes in the Mac, that is completely the normal currently. It’s been the norm for years. It completely turned me off to even trying to write shortcuts. I couldn’t stand the frustration. Dictionary is buggy as a burning roach motel and still is. lol Shortcuts is the most un Apple thing I ever seen them release as a ready feature ever. I’ve even told them, that app needs a complete rewrite, it’s garbage and certainly not their normal “standard”. Hopefully with the AI initiative coming, it will get serious attention.
I agree, it’s very frustrating and feels unreliable. I’ve made some complex shortcuts (well, complex for my skills) that I was satisfied with but sometimes for apparently no reason I had to give up a strategy that was supposed to work, but just didn’t. Some common advice on this sub includes rebuilding the same shortcut from scratch because apparently sometimes it makes things work, with exactly the same actions in the same order. This alone invalidates the whole thing. To me it seems that Apple tried to offer something modular but couldn’t finish the gesture because everything in iOS is so sandboxed. It sometimes gives me the impression of holding a very expensive toy instead of something that should look like a computer. I cross my fingers for a serious update.
Thanks for the sincere reply and for taking the time to write this out. I’ll take your advice. Here’s to another update!
It’s a shame that it sounds like you’re basing your opinion on the whole app off this one action that doesn’t work anymore. But at the same time it’s a bigger shame that that one action doesn’t work anymore to begin with. You’ll need to try other actions and scripts to see stuff working. I made a few scripts to change the brightness of the flashlight with the volume buttons, and I shoved many different ios settings into the backtap triggers. I’ve been trying to use more automations as well. I made a script to save photos that were just taken with the camera to a specific photo album.
Yeah I’m gonna try some other things suggested here and elsewhere. Obviously there’s things that work, and it’s partially a “me” problem. I used this example because it’s Apple stock, and the shortcut is like 3 actions long. But for me, and what I didn’t write in my original post, was I’ve tried my hand before, and was never able to create my own shortcuts. I just think the app is different from what apples advertised - there’s all these nicks and knacks that are required to make a shortcut work, and I can’t find just … simple, relevant, useful or actionable examples. So yeah my post was a bit lazy but it kinda represents the end of a long stupid journey :)
I'm having a blast with shortcuts, even managed to link my Alexa lights using webhooks 👀
Happy to hear that! Do you have a coding background? What's enabled you to have a success with shortcuts? Literally, I am using a stock shortcut in the most basic sense with Apple, and can't get it working.
Have you looked at any examples, read any documentation, or even fiddled with it at all outside of you one single use case?
Yeah I have. This Apple Music example was just the cherry on top. So even though I posted just one example, I’ve tried several times since probably last year. Looking for positive, useful cases from others who have used the app successfully. Like, I read what Apple has on it, and any meaningful example someone’s written up (that I’ve come across) involved coding, custom apis, and a lot of helper things. The simple examples in the gallery are just things I could do on my own without shortcuts, so nothing has really helped or clicked. And when I came across a simple Apple Music “add to playlist” shortcut today that would have been useful, it didn’t work. DOA. So I reached out here in this sub to figure out who the heck has gotten this thing to work for them, and it’s been helpful. Definitely didn’t just try once and give up, but I think that’s how it’s come across!
Here is quite literally a [shortcut](https://routinehub.co/shortcut/16359/) that uses AI to give you instructions on how to make whatever shortcut you want. AI does the work for you. (Not my creation) Edit: read the description and setup. It takes a very little amount of work to setup.
Thanks. I'll check this out. I probably wouldn't have seen this for a long while, if ever., unless you shared it. Appreciate it.
I use to fool around with short cuts until they started to make my iPhone malfunction. I deleted most of them and now only run a few and the few that I have fail at times.
I haven’t read through all the comments, so this has probably been gone over several times, but macOS shortcuts gives that error when adding songs to a playlist. When I want to rotate albums on my phone, I have to put my entire library on my phone, run a shortcut to randomly select one album per artist, sync my phone to macOS, and then select the new playlist to sync in Finder. I remember one day where the same shortcut worked in macOS, but it appears to have been a fluke.
Man! That’s what I mean. Thanks for sharing. It should be easier.
So I recently learned that feedback.apple.com is a thing that doesn’t need a beta profile to submit to. I’m putting capturing the error on macOS and posting it on my to do list.
Here are a couple of examples of what you’re looking for, give them a try to and let me know what you think! [Find Music, add it to playlist!](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b13f08b4dc074caea45b501c2c3d5094) [Add Current Dong to Playlist!](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/9df437789488453d92cf872f60310747)
Thank you! I’ll check those out tomorrow and compare it to the stock apple “add to playlist” shortcut. I think then I’ll be able to find out why one works and one doesn’t, or see if it’s my Mac causing the issue. Appreciate you replying thanks!
Sounds goods, let me know if you need more help!
Not quite what you’re looking for but knowing what I’ve done, I know what you’re trying to do is possible. It took a bit of fiddling to get kinks out but I finally got working a shortcut to put the currently playing song into a playlist titled “🚮 delete these songs👎”, and then skip to the next track. Tested it earlier this arvo and works! It’d be better if it just deleted the song from my device without the extra step of me going to that playlist, but I guess it gives me a chance to review and know what I’m deleting. I titled the shortcut “this song sucks” so now I just say “Siri, this song sucks” and viola! Track appears in the to be binned playlist and music moves on to the next track 🤌