Shortcuts is a stock app that allows you string together actions to do any task you need to do. They’re called “shortcuts”. Then, you can call these shortcuts from anywhere - Siri, the lock screen, the Home Screen, a back tap on the phone… What is really nice is that many apps add their own actions to Shortcuts, so you can have access to their resources or control them in anyway you need do.

An example: I made a shortcut called It’s time to run”. Whenever I step outside, and I’m ready to jog, all I’ve got to do is say, “it’s time for a run” (while holding the power button) and my iPhone will immediately

• start a workout on my watch

• choose a random address from my “running locations” notes and give the directions to run there

• Start tracking “Running” to time tracking app, Toggl (I like to track how I spend my time)

• Set the volume to 0

• Shuffle my running playlist and play it

• Slowly automatically crank up the volume as I get running

Then, when I come back home, my iPhone automatically runs a location based shortcut to stop my time tracking and log that I ran that day with my habit tracking app.

It’s easy to link all these half a dozen apps together with one tap of the finger or spoken word.

If you want to do more complicated things, you can, too. A few months ago, I saw someone make a shortcut that they could activate while in Photos to quickly send the photo they were looking at to an external AI so it’ll tell them what car model they were looking at. I’ve seen shortcuts to download YouTube videos right in Safari, some to schedule WhatsApp or iMessage messages. It’s limitless (and you can share shortcuts too).

No coding is required. All you need to do is drag a few actions and link them together. It’s like playing with virtual Legos.

There is also Shortcuts for macOS and iPadOS, watchOS, and all the shortcuts you create on one device are generally usable on other devices.

There’s doesn’t exist a mechanism in Android that comes close to Shortcuts.

I was an Android evangelist for say, 12 years. Like, a really really proud fan.

Then, while I was developing an app for the Google Voice Assistant, Google suddenly released an update that essentially sabotaged the entire API, making my project and so many others infeasible. It was really frustrating. So, I got an iPhone.

I first had similar complaints - I disliked how you couldn't swipe back from either side, and I disliked not having an SD card. But now I am SO glad I did. It's been such a joy - the iPhone has literally changed my relationship with my computing devices.

You can see every Apple app was carefully designed with human beings in mind. For example, I'm always making stupid early turns with Google Maps. With Apple Maps, it tells you "pass this light, and then turn right at the next light". Crystal-clear. On Photos, I can just tap the phone number on a picture of a business card and call them straight away. I could talk endlessly too about Universal Clipboard, AirDrop, the unified Call Log, and the much much longer battery life.

But the real reason I know I can never go back to Android is because of Shortcuts. Shortcuts allows you to do anything you could possibly imagine with a phone, with a simple tap. I use Shortcuts to clean out my many search engine tabs in Safari, to quickly voice record my thoughts (with date, location and time), to track my time with friends, to have my phone give a funny retort whenever I put it on charge when it's too low... At one point, I literally had my iPhone give guidance when it realized I was spending too much time on YouTube or Video games for the day (by connecting to APIs).

It's changed my life for the better, tbh. There are a few things that Androids win at for sure, but I really think you'll like the iPhone the more you use it.