Siri Shortcuts are a great idea, but their implementation was poorly executed.
Last week, I asked some of my colleagues on Business Insider's tech team — who use and write about technology every single day — if anyone had tried Siri Shortcuts. Out of the 10 people in the room, one person had tried it, but she said she didn't actually set up a shortcut.
Siri Shortcuts are basically "if-this-then-that" routines you can create for Siri. You program Siri to perform a certain action if another action occurs. The idea is to help fill in the gaps in Siri's abilities by letting people make their own commands and actions.
The problem boils down to design: It's very difficult to even find this feature — and once you're there, it's not very clear how everything works. It seems like the only people who generally understand how to use Siri Shortcuts are programmers and engineers — not regular people.
Over the past months since iOS 12 launched to the public, I've scoured various websites and subreddits to find the best Siri Shortcuts — and I had no trouble finding lots of examples. Loads of people have come up with different Shortcuts, and say they love the tool. That's great for them. But the Shortcuts other people came up with don't seem useful for my life; they're extremely specific, and they don't solve any problems I have (I don't own a car, or use the third-party apps they do, for example.)