do you ever find yourself completing the
same couple of actions on your phone
every day it's so annoying to do the
same thing over and over again a little
use feature in iOS 12 means you don't
have to be an app developer to create
something useful for your phone the new
shortcuts app can do it for you
Siri shortcuts is one of the best
features of iOS 12 it's a feature that
can help you automate tasks and reduce
the steps needed for a particular action
the shortcuts app doesn't come
pre-installed you'll have to download it
from the App Store in the app you can
add premade shortcuts or create your own
custom commands here are 5 shortcuts
that are really useful there's one
shortcut that has gotten more attention
than any other the police shortcut
created by Robert Peterson this puts
your phone and do don disturb mode sends
a text message letting someone know
you've been pulled over and prompts you
to start filming a video it's a great
example of the power of shortcuts have
you ever wanted to quickly search a
product on Amazon or target with this
shortcut you can scan a barcode and
automatically search for the product
online currently it searches Amazon
Target and Walmart this next shortcut is
great for iPhone users who want to use
the Google assistant now that the Google
assistant has support for Siri shortcuts
you can say hey Siri ok Google to talk
to the Google assistant it's not the
smoothest experience but it can come in
handy if you use the Google assistant
for things like smart home control these
next two shortcuts are great for people
who use their phone for a lot of music
and videos the play Spotify tracks
shortcut allows you to ask Siri to play
a song and Spotify instead of Apple
music just run the shortcut and say the
name of the song and your phone will
launch Spotify finally the background
YouTube shortcut lets you continue
playing a YouTube video while you use
other apps on your phone for this to
work you need a YouTube app and Google
Chrome in the YouTube app click Share
and then select series shortcut
wait until after the ad plays and close
chrome next go into the control center
and press play now your video will
continue to play in the background you
do have to be signed in to Chrome for
this to work these are just a few of the
great shortcuts that exist you can find
more in the strip-cut sap gallery the
shortcuts subreddit and the share cuts
website shortcuts actually has two forms
suggestions and shortcuts depending on
the app series suggestions might suggest
a command or function it notices you
using often like texting a friend or
setting up an alarm these suggestions
happen automatically without you
thinking about it but the real power of
shortcuts comes from creating your own
custom commands the shortcuts app allows
you to combine actions to complete a
command will create a basic shortcut
that searches for a gif and copies it to
the clipboard in the shortcuts app tap
create shortcut then add the search
giffy action next add the copy to
clipboard action this will let you
quickly search for a gif and copy it to
the clipboard now we can run the
shortcut to test it
[Music]
you can add your custom shortcuts to
Siri or even the home screen Siri
shortcuts is limited by your patience
creativity and support from app
developers with a little tinkering and
some research you can create a really
powerful command as more app developer
support shortcuts users will be able to
do even more with this powerful app