iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 02/10/2025

There are noticeable differences between the symbols (glyphs) available in the #ShortcutsApp depending on whether you’re using #iOS or #macOS 😬

Screenshot of the WinMerge app comparing two CSV files with symbol descriptions for the Shortcuts app in iOS and macOS. Differences are highlighted in yellow and orange. The macOS file has extra entries marked “;macOS only” such as Church, Flower, Wine Bottle, and Baby. Some lines also have extra notes, like "Person Ice Skating" described as "also Figure Ice Skating.” The order of sections differs too: for example, macOS places the “COMMERCE” section later. Both files share most entries, but the differences are significant and can cause confusion of users of both platforms. A side panel shows clusters of differences concentrated in the middle of the file.

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 13/09/2025

Update: I've just added 57 new #AppleWatch frames (S11 & Ultra 3) #Shortcuts #ShortcutsApp

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 13/09/2025

My "Frame Screenshots" #shortcut is ready to beautify all those #iOS26 screenshots next week. Even it they're from #iPhone17, #iPhoneAir, #iPhone17Pro, or #iPhone17ProMax 😎 routinehub.co/shortcut/7923/

A screenshot showing the 15 new frames for iPhone 17, Air, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 29/07/2025

It's a bit disheartening to receive a “Works as currently designed” verdict on feedback report FB18152648: In #Shortcuts, the expression "min(99,100)" results in a "Math error", but "min(100,99)", "min(99,98)", and "min(98,99)" do not. Demo #shortcut for easy access: www.icloud.com/shortcuts/55...

Screenshot showing two panels side by side on an iPad.

The left panel displays Apple Feedback Assistant report FB18152648 titled "Shortcuts: 'Math Error' when calculating the minimum of two integers".

The report, submitted by Antonio Bueno on 17 June 2025, was closed with the resolution "Investigation complete – Works as currently designed." The report describes that the expression min(99,100) causes a “Math Error” in the Shortcuts app, while similar expressions do not.

The right panel shows the Shortcuts app with a shortcut that contains a list of min(x,y) expressions, including min(99,100), and uses a "Repeat" and "Calculate" action. A system alert is shown saying: “Check the expression for math errors and spelling mistakes — Math error.”

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 08/07/2025

Why not use “Convert Time Zone”?

Shortcuts editor screenshot doing the same with the “Convert Time Zone” action

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 07/06/2025

View Current Page Source 2.0 routinehub.co/shortcut/4267/ This #shortcut shows a web page's HTML source with syntax highlighting (via Prism.js). Runs from Safari's share sheet. - Uses the page already loaded in Safari - Light and dark mode - Line numbers - Absolute URLs become clickable links

Screenshot of how the shortcut shows a webpage source code in light mode

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 03/05/2025

New version of my "Open URL in Another Browser" #shortcut: routinehub.co/shortcut/164... It opens URLs in a particular browser, regardless of your system's default In v2.0 the browser menu is easier to customize, the shortcut speaks all of iOS' languages and dialects, and it supports 15 browsers

Screenshot of the menu where you can pick one of fifteen browsers

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 22/03/2025

I’ve made a TOTP generator (those 6-digit codes that change every 30 seconds, used for 2FA) #shortcut that gets the “secrets” from a locked note: www.icloud.com/shortcuts/5c... It tries to match the current app and/or domain, letting the user pick if there is no match or if there are more than one

A note titled "TOTP secrets" with a red arrow pointing to the "lock" icon. The contents of the note are:
routinehub.co
Y4RNH-2D4NE-57CDH-5YWGX-4TUJ7-EQF5G
Bitwarden
MZUMIYDOZRTGE3TAMDBHAZWMYTMJUHEZGIMDCGE2TAOJTHFSGC
openai.com
JNMWVSHT ZB7NFDSL

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 16/03/2025

A #shortcut to pixelate specific areas of an image by painting over them using the Markup tool 🙂 routinehub.co/shortcut/217... Some image operations needed for this aren't available in the #ShortcutsApp but fortunately they can be implemented in JavaScript, so there are no external dependencies 😎

Cast of "Reacher" season 2, used as a demo for the shortcut

Same photo but with some faces painted blue with the Markup action in Shortcuts

The result of the shortcut: the painted areas now appear pixelated

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 22/02/2025

Oh, it's worse! Bluesky doesn't support transparent PNGs either 😓 Here's a PNG courtesy of mastodon.social 😁 files.mastodon.social/media_attach...

An iPhone 16e frame on a hand over a white background

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 22/02/2025

Bonus frame! I've also created this frame from another promo to show that "Frame Screenshots" can work with frames that are not just the device frame or necessarily centered. The #shortcut normally uses #JPEGXL images, but Bluesky doesn't support this awesome format, so here's the PNG version 🙂

An iPhone 16e frame in a hand over a white background

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 14/02/2025

What's in a QR code? 🤔 This #shortcut lets you read the contents of a QR code from an image file, and it also tells you a lot of what's going on inside: routinehub.co/shortcut/215... With that data you can, for example, redraw the QR code with your own style, like the one shown in the image 😎

A photo of a green QR code and its reconstruction by the linked shortcut. A thin red arrow goes from the photo to the redrawn QR.

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 12/12/2024

[...] I've found a much simpler workaround: convert the screenshots to BMP (and optionally back to PNG). This #shortcut does 48 tests, showing both the bug and the BMP workaround 😎 www.icloud.com/shortcuts/4a... Reported to #Apple as #FB16091431 🤞🏼 (2/2)

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 06/12/2024

"Calculate expression" is a very useful action of the #ShortcutsApp. But it only works with decimal periods 😓 If you want your #shortcut to work around the world, use a "Replace text" just before it to replace commas by periods. And if you use fancy multi-parameter functions 😁 you can use a regex.

$Three screenshots of the Shortcuts app editor side-by-side. The first one (left) showing the error when using decimal commas in "Calculate Expression". The second one (center) shows a simple fix: replace commas by periods with a "Replace text" just before the "Calculate expression". This works for most expressions, but it may cause problems if any function with more than one parameter is used. The third one (right) shows a more complex fix for that case: add a space after the commas that separate the parameters, and use the regex ,(?=\d) to only replace commas followed by digits.$

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 05/12/2024

Someone¹ collected metadata about the #shortcuts in #RoutineHub back in 2022. I though it would be (my kind of) fun to plot what glyph/symbol people use in their shortcuts and it turns out that: 1) Defaults matter a lot! Many many people don't bother changing the default one [1/2]

A 2x2 arrangements of plots showing the frequency (Y axis) of each glyph (X axis) in iOS 12, iOS 13, iOS 14, and iOS 15, respectively, according to data from https://github.com/easrng/routinehub-archive/

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 26/11/2024

Sizes and offsets in the filenames? 😇

A list of files corresponding to device frames with their "geometry" (width x height + offsets) at the beginning of each filename

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Antonio Bueno @atnbueno.com · 20/11/2024

Oops. Sorry. There was a small last-minute error in the #RoutineHub shortcut. Now it works. That #JavaScript snippet, inserted in your Apple Frames #shortcut (fortunately no error there) as the image shows, fixes the transparency issue.

Fragment of the Apple Frames shortcut were I have inserted the JavaScript snippet that fixes the transparency issue

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