I watched the Apple WWDC presentation this morning and was excited to see the announcement of Shortcuts.
Siri Shortcuts
Streamline the things you do often with shortcuts.
Siri can now intelligently pair your daily routines with third-party apps to suggest convenient shortcuts right when you need them. So if you typically pick up a coffee on the way to work, Siri will learn your routine and suggest when to place your order from the Lock screen. You can also run shortcuts with your voice or create your own with the new Shortcuts app.
This has fantastic potential for people living with disability (PLWD) to be able to adapt accessing features on their devices that traditionally they have been at the mercy of waiting someone to develop and/or include in the OS. Given that PLWD often have unique needs that often don’t overlap with the general populace, the chance of having their specific need catered for can sometimes be slim to none.
Case in point
The addition of “Hey Siri” and it’s ability to control the device by voice alone, without any required physical input, has revolutionised my life. Being able to speak and ask Siri to send messages, take calls etc has freed me and also provided a safety net in my daily life enabling me and those around me to be more confident to venture out on my own, knowing I can call for assistance. It can’t be understated.
The addition to be able to auto-answer a incoming call hands free is also a more recent iOS addition that’s changed my quality of life. But being able to turn that featureon/off at different times of my day proves problematic. I’ve often been at work in meetings and the phone answered calls. The ability to ask Siri to turn on/off that feature would be brilliant. I even requested it the other day via Twitter…
So providing shortcuts will enable me to interact with settings on my device I should be able to configure a shortcut and ask Siri to turn on and off the auto-answer feature.
If that works, Apple went steps of magnitude further by adding the ability for us to configure and control our devices in the particula personal way we need for our lives.
Putting the power of configuration in the hands of the user is always a positive thing.
Dave
life tools 