There’s an app on your iPhone which has been, for most people, a bit of an enigma. It’s called Shortcuts, and it’s one of the most underrated tools on your device, but it is really tricky to use if you haven’t come across it before. Well, in iOS 27, Apple have given Shortcuts a brand-new way to use it, where you can literally talk to your phone and it will create things for you. Now, you can create pretty much anything. You can automate things. You can speed up things that you do often on your phone. I’m going to show you a really simple example, but the possibilities are endless.

And before we get too stuck into this, if you haven’t met me before, then hi, my name is Jacob. I’m your friendly Apple expert here on YouTube to help you make the most of your devices with QuickTips just like this. So, if you want more in your feed, please do press subscribe.

Okay, so I’ve opened up the Shortcuts app, and we’re simply going to tap on the plus button at the bottom here. Now, for the first time, we can describe what we want the shortcut to do in plain English. We’re not dragging around blocks of almost-code at this stage to make it work. We’re just typing, or even talking into the phone by pressing the dictation button here.

So, let me show you. I’ll press dictate. “Create me a shortcut that will enable Dark Mode when I open the Settings app, and then will turn off Dark Mode when I leave the Settings app.” When I’m done, I can press send, and the iPhone’s going to start thinking about this request.

Now, sometimes it might ask you follow-up questions. In fact, it just has. It’s telling me that it can’t do both of those in one shortcut, but it can make two separate shortcuts. I’ll say yes, that’s fine. And then, when it’s done, you’re going to see this colourful block on the screen. You can press play and test it. You can press edit and see what’s inside, the kind of code layer underneath. Or you can simply leave the Shortcuts app, because that’s done now.

So, now my phone is in Light Mode. You can see that from my Home Screen icons. And if I open up Settings, just like that, it’s now in Dark Mode.

This is just one really simple and quite silly example, but you can imagine all the different things your phone could do. Perhaps when you receive a message from your wife, you can put the lights on at home. Perhaps when you leave the house, you can make sure that nothing’s turned on. Perhaps if you get a delivery notification, you can set up some automation. The possibilities truly are endless. So, have a lot of fun with this. Check it out.

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