Need comprehensive guide on creating shortcuts on iPhone

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Level 2

188 points

Need comprehensive guide on creating shortcuts on iPhone

I’m looking for a comprehensive guide on creating shortcuts on iPhone. When I say “comprehensive”, I mean detailed and very explanatory. For example, something that will explain what variables are all about, what they do, and how they work, not something that simply says, “You can use variables.” I’ve googled without much luck, and Amazon doesn’t seem to offer any books on the subject. Apple offers an online guide which is good for starters, but not detailed enough for what I’m looking for.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 17

Posted on May 6, 2024 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

Alancito

Level 7

29,910 points

May 7, 2024 9:01 AM in response to jla930

jla ~ You're welcome! ...One cool feature which probably arrived too late for those guides is the interface with OpenAI's ChatGPT via these two Shortcuts actions:

You'll need the free ChatGPT app from the App Store and then you can create 'Smart Automations' like the extract shown below. It asks ChatGPT to validate the country entered earlier in the shortcut. Later, (not shown) the shortcut requests ChatGPT to provide the country's 2-character ISO code so that Apple's URL can be built to display the 'Apple Locations' webpage for that country.

...Such 'Smart Automations' are good for learning how to prompt ChatGPT in such a way that its answer is reliable and in a format that can be processed programatically. This particular example is simple, but you can imagine the potential when creating more sophisticated shortcuts.