Apple Intelligence Can Build iPhone Shortcuts From Plain-English Prompts, Engadget Finds

According to Engadget, users can launch the Shortcuts app, tap the large plus icon at the bottom and type a description of what they want the shortcut to do. The app then assembles the shortcut, and users can tap the play button to test it. The app should be preinstalled on the iPhone, but Engadget said it can be downloaded from the App Store if it was deleted. Users could already load custom shortcuts created by other people, but Apple Intelligence now lets them create their own through natural-language prompts.

Engadget reported that the feature does not always work as intended. In theory, Apple Intelligence should be able to help build anything the Shortcuts app can automate; in practice, the publication said, users may need trial and error or manual adjustments. Shortcuts generated with Apple Intelligence can still be edited as usual. Engadget’s reviewer described a shortcut intended to switch the screen to grayscale when Instagram was launched and back to color when the app was closed. The first half worked, but the shortcut failed to disable color filters on exit; after going back and forth with Apple Intelligence, the reviewer ended up creating two shortcuts instead.

The publication said the app rarely refuses outright to generate a shortcut, even when the resulting solution does not do what was asked. On some occasions, when given an impossible prompt, the Shortcuts app acknowledged that the requested task was not possible. Most of the time, Engadget said, it combined actions that it considered good enough. When the reviewer asked for a shortcut to “turn my iPhone off when the battery goes below 20 percent,” the app instead simply locked the screen, according to the report.

Engadget said Apple Intelligence can also be used inside shortcuts to generate text and process data. When creating a shortcut manually, users can select Apple Intelligence to access the Use Model action, which can send requests to an AI model, process them and generate a response. That response can then be used in later actions within the shortcut. Users can choose among the Cloud, Cloud Pro and On-Device AI models, or select ChatGPT to use OpenAI’s models, according to Engadget. The publication said Apple Intelligence models appeared to handle text generation well.

Engadget’s reviewer described a shortcut that fetched an article from a URL, summarized it and saved it to the Notes app. The shortcut can be made to appear as an action when the Share button is tapped elsewhere: users launch the Shortcuts app, select the shortcut, tap the information button and turn on the Show in Share Sheet toggle. The report said results can still be inconsistent and depend on how well Apple Intelligence understands the request and assembles the necessary actions. A simpler shortcut that worked saved photos taken with the iPhone’s telephoto camera into a separate album.

Engadget said the Apple Intelligence integration is useful when it works, but advised users to tap Edit after generating a shortcut and double-check the actions it has assembled before relying on it.