They’re adding vibecoded shortcuts (the high level scripting for Apple devices). Hopefully that means they worked out some of the long-existing bugs and missing features, but I’m not optimistic. Still, could be a useful tool, especially for less tech-literate people.
If they are ok with shortcuts being vibecoded, maybe it's time to expose a proper programming language to the end users as well.
All my automation shortcuts can be easily explained in pseudo code under 5 minutes, but it took me ages to put them together because that weird UI/UX forcing me to drag-and-drop squares around to manipulate data structures. Programmers hate it, non-programmers can't understand it, it is not designed for anybody.
It's funny how they went from AppleScript -> "oh writing scripts is too complicated for users, let's create Automator" -> "Automator is too simple, let's create Shortcuts" -> now with shortcuts being generated by language models they need a structured scripting language again.
AppleScript even had "dictionaries" declaring their commands and everything, would have been perfect way teach LLMs how to automate applications.
I've never been more frustrated programming something than when I tried to build a non-trivial Shortcut. Things that I could have expressed in a quick script took me literal hours to compose and debug using the WYSIWYG interface. And since there's no version control, any mistake runs the risk of dislocating an element or messing up an input/output connection and breaking everything permanently.
It increases the value app developers might get out of offering shortcut actions - similar to how the advent of MCPs seems to have kicked a bunch of SaaS vendors into offering a clean API, the advent of Siri being able to tap into shortcut actions - and script them - might make it feel more worthwhile to app devs to open up deep functions.
I just tested this myself. I wrote “flip the reduce white point toggle accessibility option in the settings app” and it worked perfectly. Run once to set it and run again to disable it.
