iOS Shortcuts, Actually Pretty Goated
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Act 1: Rushed Judgement
I was once going on holiday to Greece with my friends, affectionately known as the ‘slimes’. And so, as any sane person would do if they had a Greek friend, I asked my one greek friend “what can I do in Athens?”. Within 30 seconds, the man had sent me a 5 page PDF he had prepared of restaurants, sights, places to avoid and places to go.
“Fuck me lad 😂 This is ridic…” - I paused.
🤔
“Wait; no, this is actually genius.” - I realised.
I realised that this was literally the smartest way to do it. I’m Irish and he’s Greek and we both live in London. The amount of people that have asked me
“Yo John, I’m going to Dublin/Belfast. What should I do there?”
And then my stupid ass, starts to fat thumb an autocorrected mess of POIs and restaurants off of a whim. The quality of the response depending on what mood I am in at the time of reply. But when that beautiful, balding Greek sent me that 5 page PDF of “Oh shit, what an Idea”, I got creating my own for my Irish friends looking to visit London and for my London friends, looking to go to Ireland.
As I was listing all the restaurants I’d been to, how I felt about them, their category etc. I thought “this is time consuming - how can I automate this?”. I am a developer (as you can see from my cv) and so I thought, how can I do this? Can I do it for free? And how can I make it as seamless as possible?
I knew I didn’t want to use any backend hosting as this would cost money so I postulated “can I run this from my phone?” And yes, I could, through use of iOS’ Shortcuts.
I too was like you where I totally disregarded Shortcuts when it was first released but my God are they fantastic.
Act 2: Storming - From Maps to Media
Through my frustrations of learning how to use shortcuts effectively, I eventually figured out how I was going to get all my movies, books, games, TV series, Map POIs and more from shortcuts. I could then use these automations to get rid of apps I barely use and I can store all my notes on media and places all in one place, instead of being scattered across various apps.
After this, I just needed a place to store them - so I went shopping for a good note taking app. This app had to be local first and allow for integration with my shortcuts - the rest didnt matter all too much. And after too many hours, I eventually ended on Obsidian. It was perfect and more.
I go into more detail about why Obsidian is amazing in my other post on it, but for the sake of this one and to link it back to my original problem, Obsidian allowed me to filter through all these notes and pull them into one note that I could quickly send onto people when asked “Oh, where’s good in Beflast?”. And these shortcuts allow me to more quickly note that information.
Act 3: Usage
(click each of the above to get the shortcut I use. You will likely need to alter it)
Pre-requisites:
- Obsidian note-taking app (or not. These are just Markdown files so you can view them as plain text if you like)
- Safari browser on iOS (it can likely be used in other browsers but I use safari so that’s what I wrote it for.)
- OMDb Api Key
- Only works with: GoodReads, Apple Maps, IMDb (You will need an OMDb api key, which is free)
The shortcuts either fetch the data from an free API or else via iOS Shortcut’s own “Run Javascript in Safari Tab” which scrapes the Safari page. They then parse the data into the correct format, before creating the .md file and saving it to your Obsidian Vault. The templates I use for my Obsidian Vault follow very closely to Kepano’s (Obsidian CEO) templates.
Note:
- Getting the OMDb API Key is free and very easy. Just google how to do this.
- You can update any database/template. The only difference is you will need to update the markdown body in the shortcut to suit your Obsidian vault (ask Chat GPT if unsure).
- If you don’t use safari, you can enhance the shortcut to work with your browser. But, for the good reads one you will have to use safari or else figure out how to create the shortcut yourself. There is a really nice subreddit for this r/shortcuts.
Act 4: Results
The data I currently extract is:
| Good Reads | Maps | IMDb (Movie) | IMDb (TV Series) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Place Type | Title | Title |
| Book Cover | Coordinates | Year | Year |
| Genres | placeColour | URL | URL |
| Page Count | placeIcon | Cover Art | Cover Art |
| URL | URL | Rating | Rating |
| Tags | Runtime | Runtime | |
| Genres | Genres | ||
| Release Date | Release Date | ||
| Plot | Plot |
(I will also likely forget about this table if I ever update these shortcuts, so you will just need to figure out if there are any changes 🙂)
Why not use Letterboxd or GoodRead’s own app?
“Giving up control, is giving up everything.” - Machiavelli (probably, i unno shiii)”
“Good design is as little design as possible.” - Dieter Rams (This one actually was Dieter)
Control and simplicity were my goals. I don’t want to have to download even more apps to track what I want tracked, and even when I do download them, they’ll likely clutter it with features I don’t want and wont have features I do. So as I build my own Second Brain, I have control.
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|
| + Centralised Media Tracker | - Doesn’t work without internet connection (but I can just create a note and populate later) |
| + Track thoughts so I can quickly share recommendations to friends |
Summary
I absolutely love the tool. What started out as a journey of having an efficient way to save time recommending London & Belfast visits, turned into a way for me to quickly recommend, shows, books, games and more, saving me from the social embarrassment of stuttering up a recommendation upon request. It not only achieves this, but also provides a personal database that I can look back on.
You are a product of your systems and if you don’t have actions to get things done, then you never will. And so the next time someone at a pub mentions a good watch, you can simply, and immediately, record it.
I can now actually make my way through my lists without having to worry about
“Oh, what should I watch tonight?”
“What did they recommend again?”
“Ah shite, where did I note that?”
I can simply check my lists and filter by category depending on what I’m feeling…
I have legend; I am consumer.