As the world’s leading smartphone brand Apple Inc. has succeeded by the launch and sales of a new iPhone every year with a number of useful features. One of their great features is the Shortcuts app which can be used to make your experience with the iPhone a remarkable one. This app not only creates shortcuts to open other applications but also makes a mix and match of a variety of functions like setting an alarm or timer, viewing a specific event on the calendar app, sending a scheduled mail, copying texts between different applications, etc.
The one major annoying bug with the Shortcuts app was when an icon was clicked, it used to open the Shortcuts app before doing the actual operation it is supposed to do, like an intermediate app. This was fixed in the new iOS 14 update where it doesn’t open the Shortcuts app but the required app.
Overview of Shortcuts Icon Aesthetics for iPhone iOS 14
Since the release of smartphones, users have always looked forward to customizing their devices to their own tastes. Android has provided users with an infinite number of options to customize the device, sky’s the limit when it comes to customizing the phone screen. Now, there are a number of apps available on the App store that can be used to customize shortcuts and aesthetics for the iPhone. Here are the steps to customize the Shortcuts app the way you wish:
1) Select the custom icon
The easy way is to download photos from the internet that you like and set them as the app icon or the quick way is to buy an icon pack that contains different icons for the user to use. Here is how to craft your own custom aesthetic look on your iPhone.
2) What to do in the Shortcuts app and how to select the app to make shortcut for?
Go to “Shortcuts” application on your mobile if present or download it from the App store. Then click on the ‘+’ icon on the corner (top right) of the screen and then click on ‘Add action’ button on the next screen. From the list of the given actions choose the one you prefer for the action you wish to animate. Tap on the app you want and then select ‘Choose’.
3) Enter the name for the shortcut
Click on the 3 dots on the right top of the screen and enter the shortcut name, then the ‘Add to Home Screen’ below.
4) Choosing the custom icon for the shortcut
Click on the shortcut icon near the name you entered and select an action from ‘Take photo’, ‘Choose photo’ or ‘Choose file’ depending on where you have the custom icon you want.
Here, select the picture that has to be added as the app icon and select ‘Choose’ on the bottom right of the screen, then ‘Add’ and finally ‘Done’. Now you can check out the new shortcut with the custom icon on your home screen.
Sample Images For Shortcuts Icon Aesthetics
Key Points to Remember About Shortcuts App
Some of the key pointers to remember while using the Shortcuts app are as follows:
- Shortcuts for different actions are stored under appropriate categories. So, knowing the right category to look for will help find the required shortcut.
- ‘My Shortcuts’ has a collection of shortcuts you already made.
- ‘All Shortcuts’ include all the shortcuts that are available already in the application.
- ‘Share Sheet’ has all the shortcuts in the share sheet of another application.
- The ‘Apple Watch’ category contains, as the name suggests, the shortcuts that can be used with the Apple Watch.
- The ‘App Shortcuts’ category contains all the available shortcuts that can be added to all the apps.
- With the Shortcuts app, it is not only possible to add shortcuts to open apps but also can be used to perform a wide variety of actions like setting an alarm by just clicking on the shortcut icon created for that purpose.
- One of the most used shortcuts is setting a timer to ‘Stop Playing’ which stops playing media (music, YouTube, video) after the timer runs out.
- It is also used to lock apps when tried to open. While attempting to open the app it will take the user to the lock screen where the user has to type in the password or need a touch ID or Face ID to open the app. This shortcut helps to maintain proper privacy.
Conclusion
Users also have to remember that this app is really complicated and requires proper knowledge to get the best out of it. This app can bridge a lot of gaps which will make it a smooth and very convenient experience to operate iOS devices. But the app itself is so complicated which is the reason why users don’t try to create shortcuts more than a few attempts as they are not really able to understand how it works.
So, to get on easily with that here’s a tip, it’s more like a building blocks process where there are different stages to creating the shortcut. Every stage has to be understood and carried out properly to get the output collectively.