Shortcuts has the same premise as Automator, but benefits from being designed more than a decade later-and of being aggressively improved, year after year. The future of user automation on all of Apple’s platforms should be Shortcuts. And the good news is, there is a clear path for Apple to take.
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This is yet another reason why Apple should start the Mac on its transition to the user automation of the future. Why should I ask a developer to add support for old tech that’s probably going to be replaced in the near-ish future? It seems like a waste of their efforts. It’s clear to me that AppleScript and Automator are outmoded technology that’s been parked. It’s great that I can use Keyboard Maestro to make Audio Hijack do what I want, but it shouldn’t be necessary.Īnd here’s the real tragedy of it: I have been tempted to email Rogue Amoeba to beg them for AppleScript support in Audio Hijack, but every time I consider what to say, I decide not to bother. But the fact that I need to use its brute-force techniques is actually a symptom of the larger disease: Great modern Mac-only apps like Rogue Amoeba’s $59 Audio Hijack are frequently released without any scripting support whatsoever. Keyboard Maestro’s existence is a credit to the Mac. It owes its power to some mind-boggling methods, like emulating keyboard shortcuts, invoking menu items, and monitoring what’s displayed on the screen itself. Keyboard Maestro has been the solution to almost every this-seems-impossible problem I’ve encountered on my Mac. These days most of the automation delight I get on the Mac comes from two sources: those aforementioned unix commands and shell scripts, and Stairways Software’s $36 Keyboard Maestro. Still, I end up using Automator regularly because it allows me to integrate AppleScript and unix/shell scripting directly into the Finder. If I ever thought Automator was okay, one glance at Shortcuts (or its predecessor, Workflow) would disabuse me of the notion. Apps didn’t support it well, and Apple failed to provide a robust enough library of actions to make it work well on its own. I’m branching out.Īs much as I like the impetus behind Automator-automation for the masses!-it died on the vine. It’s incredibly powerful, but it’s probably telling that in the last year I’ve built widgets for both iOS and macOS in PHP, JavaScript, and Python. Beyond simple control-flow steps, most of what I do in AppleScript (and Automator) these days is issue unix commands. Its syntax is impenetrable, and as a veteran user, I still have to google for examples if I’m going to attempt to script an app I’ve never controlled before. I use them to sync files for podcast editing, upload files to my web and podcast servers, and even build the weekly Six Colors newsletter.īut the truth is, AppleScript never really caught on, and what cachet it did have has long since evaporated. Perhaps I reveal too much about myself as an old-school Mac user when I admit that I run AppleScript scripts and Automator actions almost every day. And between the two platforms there’s no connectivity at all.
On iOS, Shortcuts has some weaknesses and an every-app-for-itself mindset prevails. On the Mac, the technologies feel old-fashioned, adrift, and increasingly unsupported.
The problem is that today, everything about user automation on Apple’s platforms is fractured. AppleScript was an early attempt to demystify scripting for a lay audience Automator was sold as an easy building-block interface for performing tasks and Shortcuts on iOS brought a modern sensibility to Automator’s premise. Whether it’s a task that’s so specific that it only applies to one person, or a task that bridges a bunch of different apps and services that just aren’t focused on working together, automation can make our devices do the work so that we don’t have to.įor years, Apple has been a leader in user automation. Not everyone is a programmer, but most of us perform repetitive tasks on our devices that can be eliminated by a judicious application of automation.
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