An Apple Shortcuts masterclass

If you know how to set it up, it can almost seem like your phone can read your mind. The minute you walk out of the office, a text gets automatically fired off letting your spouse know exactly when you’ll be home. When you start reading a book, your phone immediately shuts off notifications. When you want a cup of joe, your phone can randomly send you to one of your neighborhood favorites, and even order for you.

All sounds good, right? That’s what makes Apple Shortcuts so tantalizing. The reality may not be quite so simple.

On this episode of The Vergecast, podcaster and creator Stephen Robles joins the show to dig into what’s right and what’s wrong about Shortcuts. David’s a longtime doubter of Shortcuts, which is far too complicated to be truly useful to users; Stephen is making a career in part out of making them useful. The two have some talking to do.

Before we get to that, though, The Verge’s Victoria Song catches us up on her adventures with the Meta Ray-Ban Display, also known as “the smart glasses with a screen.” Vee has worn the glasses day in and day out for weeks now, and explains what works, what doesn’t, and what just needs a little more work. There’s no question this is an impressive piece of hardware. But is it actually something we want? And what do we want them to do? Those answers are less clear.

After that, it’s Shortcuts time. Stephen shares some of his favorite Shortcuts, how he comes up with and builds new ideas, how AI can make Shortcuts even more compelling, and what would make the system work better for him. David mostly just complains about the interface.

Finally, David answers a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!) about headphones, and what to make of the fact that it’s incredibly easy to find a pair of decent earbuds but surprisingly difficult to find great ones for cheap. And as we mention, we want your help: have you impulse-bought a pair of earbuds, from a company you’ve never heard of, that turned out to be pretty good? We want to hear about them.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started: