Enhancements Announced for Apple's Shortcuts Application in iOS 26 and macOS 26: Discover How It Boosts Your Productivity
Ready to level up your Apple experience? Here's a lowdown on the fabulous Shortcuts app that's been hiding pleasantly within your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and about to become even more potent after the WWDC 2025 updates.
This nifty little app lets you automate tasks across your devices, ranging from creating a quirky GIF from a Live Photo to an intricate system for annotating podcasts while recording it. Create workflows in the Shortcuts app by piecing together actions and passing information between them. For example, scanning any text in an image and overlaying it on an image of your choice to create a meme.
Post the WWDC 2025 updates, Shortcuts will leverage Apple Intelligence features and automate actions on the Mac, making this automation tool more versatile than ever before, despite the odd glitch or two that might need squashing.
Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence
Let's dive into the exciting updates awaiting on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 Tahoe:
- A smorgasbord of new actions based on Apple's Writing Tools feature will let you proofread, rewrite, or summarize text, offering much the same options as the manual Writing Tools interface.
- Actions to tap into Apple Intelligence's Image Playground, generating images based on prompts via on-machine models or ChatGPT, and transcribing audio.
- The most powerful and talk-of-the-town addition: the Use Model action, an open-ended command that processes prompts with one of three large language models, including the on-device model, Apple's private cloud, or ChatGPT.
With these new features, instantly create, collate, and share essential information, like summarized sections, points, or bullet-points from large documents, transforming the way you work.
Shortcuts for macOS gets Automation
On macOS, the Shortcuts app will now boast long-awaited Automation, matching its iOS and iPadOS counterparts. Cue the excitement! Spend less time on tedious, repetitive tasks as your Mac manages drafting emails once you've jotted down email content, or logging expenses when emails contain receipts.
Exciting Aspects of Shortcuts
As an automation enthusiast, I simply can't contain my excitement. With AI integration, creating sophisticated workflows is a breeze, enabling tasks that previously seemed nigh impossible - like automating receipt creation and filing.
However, let's face it; Shortcuts remains pretty basic, despite these updates. Limited features require falling back on other languages like shell scripts or AppleScript to execute complex tasks. And a sizable chunk of Apple's operating system functionalities still remains inaccessible to the app.
The Future of Shortcuts
Despite its shortcomings, the year's updates signal that Apple hasn't forgotten about Shortcuts and suggest a brighter future for the automation tool. Stay tuned for more exciting developments as Apple unveils its next updates a year from now!
**References**
[1] MacRumors, Apple unveils Shortcuts for macOS at WWDC 2025 (2025). [Available Online] https://www.macrumors.com/wwdc2025-shortcuts-for-macos/
[2] TechCrunch, The Shortcuts app will get a host of new features on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 Tahoe (2025). [Available Online] https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/06/the-shortcuts-app-will-get-a-host-of-new-features-on-ios-26-ipados-26-and-macos-26-tahoe/
[3] Apple, Unlock the full potential of Shortcuts (2025). [Available Online] https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/shortcuts/welcome/ios
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- The upcoming WWDC 2025 updates for Shortcuts will bring a surge of new functionalities, including actions based on Apple's Writing Tools feature, integration with Apple Intelligence's Image Playground, and the Use Model action, enabling open-ended commands for language processing.
- With the introduction of Automation on macOS, the Shortcuts app will now match its counterparts on iOS and iPadOS, making it possible to automate tedious tasks like drafting emails or logging expenses directly from emails.
