Apple

YOUR FIRST SHORTCUT ran pre–baked actions with a tap, but the app’s real power is when acting on data. Let’s continue with an example like the one Apple demoed when it unveiled Shortcuts. We’ll message a family member with our expected arrival time a

Apple both sets trends and chases them, and iOS 12, unveiled at the WWDC keynote, is no exception. With this release, Apple is focusing on performance improvements and enhancements, even for older devices. The company is also making important changes

LAST YEAR, APPLE bought Workflow, a brilliant automation app from a small team led by Ari Weinstein (twitter.com/ariX), the former iPhone jailbreaker who also co-created VotePlz, a tech platform that helped first-time voters get to the polls in the 2

Your Mac’s Spotlight search engine (opened by pressing Cmd+Spacebar) is a great way to find your files and launch apps. Siri, added in macOS Sierra, has a few tricks up its sleeve, too. Enter “define:” (without quotes) as your first term in Spotlight

MACHINE LEARNING ALREADY makes your devices proactively helpful, like how app suggestions in Spotlight save you searching. Your devices work out what to show there based on what you do and when. However, iOS 12 takes this to the next level by suggest

ONCE YOU’VE EXPLORED the simple shortcuts that iOS suggests, it’s time to try out the Shortcuts app. You can use this to make powerful shortcuts by chaining together actions, enabling you to fulfill more complex objectives than the simple tasks your

ALONGSIDE iOS 12, Apple introduced Shortcuts, an improved version of the Workflow app it acquired in 2017. If you want to learn more about this app, we published a dedicated guide in Mac|Life issue 147. The illustrated examples here are simple and sh

THE THIRD–PARTY app Workflow, which Apple bought in 2017, has been renamed Shortcuts and gained new capabilities. Other apps expose to it actions that can be taken within them. You stitch together a sequence of actions, potentially involving multiple

REQUIRES A Mac or iOS device YOU WILL LEARN How to use text replacement shortcuts to save typing time IT WILL TAKE 20 minutes MANY OF US spend a lot of time typing on our Macs and iOS devices. All that typing can be tiresome if you find yourself repe

Reviewers can’t agree whether the iPad Pro can be used for “real work,” but there’s one thing they all seem to agree on: the new iPad Pro hardware is great and Apple needs to invest in upgrades for iOS to take advantage of it. But what form should th

WHEN YOU PUT iOS 12 on your iPhone or iPad, it probably took a day or two for one of the new operating system’s most helpful and powerful features to reveal itself. By now you should have started to notice that your device is more helpful than before

Whether you’ve already bought iPhone X, plan to do so in the next few months, or will wait at least a generation, one thing’s for sure: The new model marks a step change in how you interact with your Apple device. That’s largely because iPhone X disp