Smart Ways to Use iOS 26's New Shortcuts
iOS 26 has brought some cool updates to the Shortcuts app, making it even more useful. These updates are powered by Apple Intelligence, which adds new features like LLM-based actions. This means you can automate tasks that used to take a lot of time, like transcribing audio, tracking food, and even getting news summaries.
The Shortcuts app is already a great tool for automating tasks on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. But with iOS 26, it's become even more powerful. Apple has added new actions and improved the shortcut editor, making it easier to create custom shortcuts. Plus, there's a growing community of users who share their own creative shortcuts for free.
Most Useful Shortcuts to Try Out
Summarize Doc AI
- Gives a quick summary of any document.
- Uses different LLM models like ChatGPT, On-Device, and Cloud.
Brainstorm Ideas AI
- Turns spoken ideas into a formatted note with a bullet point list and full transcript.
Food Scanner to Health
- Scans barcodes and pictures of food to give nutritional information.
- Calculates daily macros.
Save for Later
- Saves the contents of websites, social media posts, and more to Apple Notes.
- Organizes them into specific folders.
AI Transcribe and Summary
- Transcribes audio files and provides a summary and key points.
- Works best with ChatGPT for longer transcripts.
Transcribe Latest Memo GPT
- Transcribes the latest voice memo and provides a detailed summary.
- iPhone and iPad versions have a 20-minute limit; Mac version can handle hours of audio.
Daily Screen Time Report
- Lists your most-used apps and their usage time.
- Can be customized to pull activity for a specific day, week, or month.
Describe Image AI
- Recognizes and describes images.
- Useful for users with visual impairments.
Are People in This Photo?
- Scans photos and tells if there are people in them.
- Can automatically sort photos with and without people into different albums.
News Report AI
- Pulls news from RSS feeds and saves them to an Apple note.
- Can be automated to run at specific times of the day.
Football Schedule AI
- Looks up the schedules of your favorite teams.
- Creates a list of their upcoming games.
Ultimate Movie to Note AI
- Searches for movies, shows where they're streaming.
- Creates an Apple note with the movie poster and a link to watch it.
Random Wallpaper from Folder
- Changes your iPhone wallpaper to a random one from a folder of your choosing.
- Can be automated to run at specific times of the day.
These shortcuts are just a taste of what iOS 26 has to offer. With Apple Intelligence, the possibilities are endless. So, which shortcuts will you be using in your daily routine?
