How to Create a Siri Shortcut
iOS 12 brings a whole new way to interact with your iPhone, no purchase of a $1,099 XS Max required. Siri Shortcuts take the work out of your most common iPhone tasks, so you can save yourself a few swipes or taps to get things done faster. Instead, you create a custom Siri command to trigger a shortcut.
Siri Shortcuts will start to reveal themselves to you after you update your device to iOS 12. Shortcuts are endlessly customizable in a separate Shortcuts app, but you’ll notice them first in apps you already use. At launch, those apps include Pandora, Evernote, Things, Google News, Ulysses, Streaks, PCalc, Carrot Weather, The Weather Channel, SkyGuide, Citymapper and Trello.
Here’s how Siri Shortcuts works.—Caitlin McGarry
1. Open an app that supports Siri Shortcuts. In this case, we’ll use Carrot Weather.
2. Find the Siri Shortcuts section in your app. In some cases, there will be an “Add to Siri” button that tells you more about what Siri can do for you.
For Carrot Weather, there’s a Siri Shortcuts link in the app’s settings that leads to a list of potential shortcuts you can select.
3. Tap the red button to record a phrase that you’ll use with Siri to launch a shortcut.
4. Tap Done.
If a supported app doesn’t have an “Add to Siri” button, there’s another way to add a shortcut.
1. Open Settings.
2. Tap on Siri & Search.
3. Choose from a list of suggested shortcuts Siri has created for you at the top of the screen. At present, most, though not all, of the suggested shortcuts use built-in iOS apps.
4. Scroll down to a specific app to see available shortcuts — Google News, for this example.
5. Tap on Shortcuts in the app’s settings.
6. Select a shortcut.
7. Record a phrase to prompt that shortcut with Siri.
In this example, we’ll use Siri to give you the daily Google News briefing, record a phrase that will prompt the assistant to do that. Mine is: “Hey Siri, tell me the news.”
8. Tap Done.
As more apps add support for Siri Shortcuts, eventually you won’t have to swipe, tap or type to get the information you need. Siri will do all the work for you.
If you want to take shortcuts to the next level by a cascade of actions across a variety of apps that can be triggered with a single phrase, install the new Shortcuts app in the iOS App Store.
