by Jason Snell
‘Shortcuts for Mac: The Future Is Now’
John Voorhees provides a really good overview of how far Shortcuts has come:
The second thing that struck me about Monday’s announcement is how well Shortcuts has been set up to succeed on the Mac. Although I’ve wanted Shortcuts on the Mac for what feels like forever, I think the wait will be worth it in the end. Had Shortcuts been brought to the Mac too early, it would have been starting from a full stop. By waiting until Mac Catalyst apps matured and iPhone and iPad apps could be run on M1 Macs, Shortcuts will enjoy a long list of third-party apps that support it day one. I migrated my M1 MacBook Air to an M1 iMac that I’m testing, and when I installed macOS Monterey, I already had more than a dozen third-party apps to test with Shortcuts. Add to that the fact that AppKit apps can add Shortcuts support, and it’s clear that Apple is sending the message that Shortcuts is the future of automation for all apps, not just a subset built a certain way.
It’s not just exciting that the Mac will now have access to the same great automation tools that have been growing on iOS. It’s exciting that Apple has a plan for user automation across all its platforms, and is executing it.