Beta: Siri Shortcut Actions backend change for iOS

Beta Community Apple Beta
#1

:wave: With the march of time, certain big changes have to be adopted as iOS progresses forward. One of those things is how Siri Shortcuts are powered. Our older shortcut actions were powered by an older technology, and with this latest build, it's migrated to the newer technology.

This new tech, called App Intents, power many of the new features found in iOS 17 and 18, including the new Control Action buttons you can place all over the phone or use with the Action Button. It's also what will be used to power certain features found in Apple Intelligence.

So to be able to participate in some of those features, we need to update the app and how the Siri actions work.

Theoretically, your Siri Shortcuts that already exist, should keep working. But there's a chance they don't. And if they don't, we'd love to hear from you.

If your shortcut stopped working, please let us know and include:

  1. Channels Siri Shortcut Action Name
  2. Parameters of the action
  3. How is it broken?

Thanks everyone!

Re: Latest tvOS/iOS Beta Update
#2
#3

What are the inside baseball changes in the latest release?

This is a bit of an internal change and inside baseball.

#4

Everything that was explained.

#5

I use a bunch of similar shortcuts to turn on apple tv and then open channels and then invoke channels to tune to a specific channel - it still works fine

#6

Can you try making a new shortcut and choosing the Channels Beta to choose action from it?

#7

Tried shortcut with watch channels on other device and it does not work. When run on iOS device, it opens Channels on the iOS device (does not tune), but the ATV (called Living Room Channels) does nothing.

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#8

Im noticing old device names no longer on the client list on the server, so the list of choices when creating a shortcut is outdated - and therefore the “play on other device” not working for me either - seems its confused.

#9

Old devices are normal, as we have to cache the device list to present them as options in shortcuts.

It’s not prudent to remove clients we don’t see on the network, as they may just not be running.

So if you change devices a lot, you’ll accrue devices in the list.

There’s an option in Settings > Support in the iOS app to prune this device list.

1 Like
#10

I’m also have an issue with the watch channel on other device shortcut action not tuning. No error, it just seems to ignore the action…

#11

Is anyone seeing the Shortcuts app crash when choosing Channels in it while trying to add a new action?

#12

Im seeing this now…

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Its strange. It was working from my phone, but the testflight was older 9.4.1608

Then when I tried same shortcut from my ipad on the latest testflight, I got the above error.

Now when I roll back both ipad and iphone to the older testflight beta the still have the error above.

Im on ios 17.6.1, TVOS 17.6.1

#13

The latest release has more changes to the backend, which should be stabilized after this build. Some things had to change a lot to support the next feature, which is,

The app now supports some Control Center buttons (which can be used on the Lock Screen and with the Action Button, as well as other places). There's just Open Channels and Open Section for now, but we'll get as many of the existing actions in there as possible as time moves on. But the groundwork is in there now.

Everyone with issues, please try them again, as things have changed since you last reported the issues. Please confirm the issue is still there or report what you're now seeing after this change.

#14

This is working now with 10.04.1900.

#15

Watch on other device looking good 10.5.336