Apple’s Siri is a great feature that has become more useful over time. As the technology becomes better, so do the options we have when it comes to doing more with Siri. There are some Siri shortcuts you can use to make your life easier. I’ve been using Siri since day 1 and I’m particular about how I want to use it. I look for functionality within a few minutes of simply asking for it, which is why iOS users should make use of these 7 voice-activated shortcuts.
1. Search Amazon
This is a cool shortcut that lets you search for a product on Amazon by scanning a barcode. This can come in handy if you would like to compare the offline pricing with the Amazon store.
It’s pretty simple to use. Just tap the shortcut and the camera will be opened. Now scan the barcode of any product and the shortcut will instantly open amazon with the results of the product associated with the barcode.
If you’re at an offline store and want to quickly compare a product’s price with the Amazon price, you can do so with just one tap.
This shortcut works for amazon.com (which is for US users). However, you can easily change the country inside the shortcut’s settings.
To change the country, follow the steps below
- Go to the shortcuts app and tap the 3 dots in the scan and search amazon shortcut.
- Under the list (can be found under otherwise), you can find a link something like this “com.amazon.mobile.shopping.web://www.amazon.com/s/ref=iphonetr20-20?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=”.
- On the link, replace the highlighted text with your country’s amazon URL.
For example, if you’re from India, replace amazon.com with amazon.in. - Finally, close the shortcut and test it.
Note: This shortcut requires the amazon app to be installed on your device.
2. Social Media Downloader
This Siri shortcut allows you to download videos and stories from Social Media. The process is simple. Just go to the video you want to download, tap share and then copy the link. Then go to the shortcuts app and tap the Social Media Downloader (SMD).
It will automatically pull out your URL since it was copied to the clipboard and process it. As a result, it will ask you for quality all the way up to 720P. Tap the quality you want and it will start downloading the video straight into your camera roll.
3. Add iPhone frame to screenshots
This shortcut adds an iPhone frame to the screenshot making it really cool and professional when you share them with others. It supports up to iPhone 13 as of now and the developer will continue to update the frames once every new iPhone launches. For this shortcut to work, a file called frames.jason should be downloaded but the shortcut will auto-download the file. All you need to do is give permission for the download.
Take a screenshot and tap the share sheet icon. Now tap Apple frames and allow all other permission that the shortcut is asking. On the first time, the shortcut might be slow but will eventually be speed from the second time. This is because the shortcut will download a file in the background and this is not required for the second time and so on.
4. Covert Burst to GIF
This shortcut allows you to convert burst photos into GIFs. Tap the Shortcut and select the burst images and Boom. It will combine them all together and give you an output in GIF format. It will also ask you to share or save photos, making it easier to share right away after you created them.
5. Sales Tax
This is a location-based shortcut that lets you find the tax added to a product. helps you find how much tax is actually added to a certain price. so it will need access to your location because it is location-based.
This way it works with every single state so if we put in our subtotal let’s say 100.96$ and it will give you the total after-tax is 270.337$.
It was built by basically getting the location of your state and showing local and then it shows you all of the values for each state right there.
Then it takes the subtotal and multiplies it by the value right there which then it does round it up and it gives you the final round total. This is very useful for finding sales tax.
6. WhatsApp Non-Contact
This shortcut is extremely useful for WhatsApp users. The most annoying thing about WhatsApp is you first have to add the number to your contact list and then you can start chatting.
It’s kinda irritating and this shortcut solves the problem. This shortcut will allow you to chat with any WhatsApp user without adding them in the contact. It makes sense if I’m not going to be in touch with them in the future every now and then.
Open the shortcut and enter the number you want to send a message to. Make sure to add the number with the country code. Finally, the shortcut can open a chat with that number without adding it to your contact list.
7. Got Pull Over
If you’re in a seriously bad situation, this shortcut might help you. It can be a handy thing to have when you are in a tough situation. Running this script will do a series of functions that will help you when you encounter a bad situation.
It first turns the brightness to a minimum, activates do not disturb mode, then proceeds to send a pre-programmed text message to your emergency contact with your current location and tweet about your situation on behalf of you.
The best part is it automatically begins to record a video and send it to your emergency contact as well.
This shortcut comes in handy if you are in some bad situation and seek prevention if something goes bad.
Our Recommendations :
You can run the shortcut either by using the shortcuts gallery in the shortcuts app
( or )
- You can assign a Siri custom voice command for each and every shortcut which triggers them and makes it easier.
- You can also add these shortcuts to widgets if you don’t prefer Siri voice commands.
Conclusion
So that’s it. These are some of the best and handy Siri shortcuts that make some of the jobs easier. With introduction of the Siri shortcut, the probability and functionality of Siri are almost endless by creating custom commands. If you have got time, just play with the shortcut app and you will be amazed by its probabilities.
If you feel like the list is missing some shortcuts, do let me know in the comments below.
