The Shortcuts app on iOS 12 is a great example of the power of defaults. When it was still a third-party, paid (if I recall correctly) app called Workflow, only a handful of geeks used it, although it was really good back then. Apple bought it, kept the name, released it for free under the same name. Yet, it wasn’t until this year’s WWDC when Apple announced that the app would be renamed and become more integrated with Siri and the iOS services, that it caught the attention of the average consumer. Indeed, not everyone can be a programmer, but the level of tinkering that Shortcuts allows is easy to start with, and still develop relatively complex workflows. Who knows, perhaps, some of the more interesting workflows created by users, would appear as integrated features in the upcoming versions of iOS.

Besides Pythonista, Workflow has been one of my favorite productivity tools on iOS. I was very skeptical at WWDC, but I am surprised to say that that Apple did not disappoint me this time. All of my existing automations are still there and work perfectly. On top of that, I got new integrations. Seems like a good deal.

P.S. this article was posted from my iPad using a Workflow/Shortcuts automation.