Where could Shortcuts go from here?

A thorough overview of iOS 12 Shortcuts was published today by the contagiously enthusiastic Federico Viticci. Together with last week's article on iMore by Matt Cassinelli it tells you all you could ever want to know about how Siri Shortcuts will work for users, for devs, and how it compares to the pre-acquisition Workflow app.

I wanted to offer 7 thoughts on where Shortcuts might go from here.

• First of all, macOS Shortcuts. With UIKit on Mac next year, Apple is pushing iOS developers to port their iOS apps to its power platform. It would be strange for automation, a typical power user feature, to not be transferrable from iOS to macOS. It would make sense for Apple to try to make Shorcuts macOS compatible by WWDC19, in for iOS devs porting their apps to macOS. That said, the technical challenges are also significant as the underlying technologies and interprocess communication models are quite different.
• One key question on macOS Shortcuts will be how they will handle existing Automator and AppleScript functionality. I can't imagine Apple throwing AppleScript out of the window any time soon - too many professional users have workflows that rely on these scripts. People would expect at least a few years backwards compatibility. On the other hand, they can't expect developers to support 2 models of automation in their apps. Will be interesting to see what route they take.
• Second, allow variables in trigger phrases. You can teach Siri Shortcuts the phrase "order a pineapple pizza" and the seperate phrase "order a cheese pizza". But you can not teach it the generic structure "order a <var> pizza" and process the variable to pick a pizza from the menu. Developers will definitely want to be able to use more complex grammar on trigger phrases, like they can do in existing supported domains in SiriKit. Supporting this in dozens of languages could become very tricky though, both for Apple and for 3rd party devs - the "user-defined trigger phrase" approach cleverly sidesteps this particular can of worms.
• Third, permanent Siri Shortcuts mode, what I'd like to call Voice Control. Rather than taking over the full screen when the user says "Hey Siri" or presses a button, Siri could stay in a corner while the app stays front and center. Users could continuously give commands to the app, like existing dictation software: "Next episode. Resume from previous playback. Increase volume." Users could be given a much wider selection of commands once they are within the app context, as there is less risk of overlapping or similar sounding commands from different apps. Devs would have to choose which limited set of commands to make available at a system-wide level, and which wider set to make available in-app.
• Fourth, Shortcuts could be linked to Playgrounds. As a next step of automation above what is already possible with Shortcuts, this would enable a more powerful and complex level of scripting, very comparable to AppleScript vs. Automator on macOS. How cool would it be to have the Playgrounds app in slide-over mode, calling the shots on a 3rd party app alongside it? The key question would be what language they would use for this - is Swift really suited as a scripting language? Would bringing AppleScript to iOS be a good idea? Room for debate.
• Fifth, allow us to use Shortcuts as Notification handlers. Apps today can donate tasks to Siri Shortcuts, but they can not donate triggers. It is possible to write a script that says "Text my wife and call my doctor", but it is not possible to say "IF my heart rate goes above 180, THEN text my wife and call my doctor", like IFTTT. Apple could do something similar by allowing 3rd party apps to donate triggers to Siri Shorcuts. I also think they could tie it into the existing Notifications system and let Shortcuts respond to Notifications - this might be one way to help us deal with Notification overload.
• Sixth, cross-device automation. As for example the HomePod continues to mature, it will become Siri's natural place in the home. Being able to tell Siri (on the HomePod) to play your workout playlist in the Mac, start a workout app on the AppleTV, and close the curtains would be nice. There is some overlap here with Automation in the Home app and I wonder if Apple will eventually merge this functionality somehow.
• Finally, being able to edit Shortcuts by voice. Like the Viv assistant that was created by former Siri team members after they left Apple (which was later purchased by Samsung), it would be nice to be able to just tell Siri to create a new shortcut, describe which steps you want it to take, and give it a name. I suspect Apple won't do this any time soon - Siri's core technology isn't mature enough yet and the advantage over editing the scripts manually is marginal - but if they reach this point it would be clear that voice technology is fully mature.

All in all, Shortcuts is a very promising start and has a massively talented team behind it. They could choose to take it in many different ways. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it evolve in the years to come.

Just my two cents.