Sam CoeJun 13, 2024
Marcos Tanaka

Interesting change in guidance for App Intents this year, probably in preparation for upcoming Apple Intelligence features. Direct quote from ‘Design App Intents for system experiences’:

“Previously, app intents were meant to be the most habitual tasks in your app that could be useful outside of your app. This meant an app was expected to only have a few app intents. In iOS 18, we’re changing this guidance to go beyond common functionality. Now, anything your app does should be an app intent.”

Jun 12, 2024 at 7:40pmWeb
Show threadMatthew CassinelliJun 12, 2024
@mactanaka 😈
Show threadJack WellbornJun 12, 2024
@mactanaka @matthewcassinelli It's almost as if the next logical step would be for apps to create a dictionary of sorts. 😜
Show threadAntonio BuenoJun 12, 2024
@mactanaka They should start then with their own apps, you know, leading by example and all that 😡
Show threadRichard KolasaJun 12, 2024
@mactanaka I LOVE this but am very curious how far certain companies are willing to go handing off behavior and functionality to the system, since the end result seems to be less interaction directly with the app. Especially with iOS 18
Show threadMarcos TanakaJun 13, 2024
@notkoalas I think indie developers will adopt it, especially if users come to expect it. But bigger companies/apps like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram will have a hard time justifying it.
Show threadJonathan DechkoJun 13, 2024

@mactanaka @rosemary I don’t understand app design, but is this something that all apps do?

Cross-platform apps (looking at you, Goodnotes and Garmin) currently don’t take much advantage of shortcuts as they seem to be built for a common set of features. I really hope that these are two separate, unrelated things

Show threadMarcos TanakaJun 13, 2024

@jdechko Not every app supports it, but Apple now uses this technology in so many places throughout the OS that I think it will slowly become more popular.

Cross-platform apps often don't support these OS-specific features because they aim to share the same code across different platforms, which (usually, but not always) means supporting the lowest common denominator in terms of features.

Show threadJonathan DechkoJun 13, 2024

@mactanaka Yeah, that’s been my experience as well.

I’ll keep doing my semi-annual notes app review just to see if anything better pops up.

Show threadPeter N LewisJun 13, 2024
@mactanaka this has always been the problem with Intents, and Shortcuts for that matter, and too a lesser degree AppleScript support if an app had that. They implement only what the programmer thinks the user will want to do. I can tell you with twenty years of experience developing automation tools—what users wants to do is extremely varied and unpredictable. This is why, to date anyway, things like UI control are required to automate apps - clicking and typing and interacting with UI widgets.
Show threadMarcos TanakaJun 13, 2024
@peternlewis It seems like the idea before was to make it easier for users who are not familiar with automation to understand what they could do with Shortcuts without overwhelming them with too many options. But now that users will presumably be able to interact with it using natural language, the more actions apps provide, the better the AI assistant will be able to successfully fulfill their requests.
Show threadBynkiiJun 13, 2024
@mactanaka @elektrojunge