Beta: Siri Shortcuts Phase 2

[racameron]

@maddox

On Apple TV the app has to be Open. Shortcuts has a "Open App on Apple TV" action to launch apps. If you're using an Apple TV, always use this action to launch Channels before your Channels actions in your shortcut.

I tried this out this morning, and am impressed. I was able to press a single button on my phone when I got up this morning, and by the time I got downstairs my TV was already on and tuned to the morning news. Thanks, guys!

[Fofer]

@alai

Also: I'd love to hear what other users have set their Siri commands/phrases to since the most natural ones are taken by Apple's default commands. I had to set the toggle captions shortcut to "Hey Siri, Channels Captions" because a more natural reference to turn on captions will result in Siri trying to toggle captions at a system level, which doesn't work.

I have two AppleTVs running Channels, so the voice command for CC toggle that seems to be working best for me right now, at least in the bedroom, is "Hey Siri, captions in bedroom." I'm sure one day Siri will be location aware. In the meantime, this should do just fine. Any other suggestions for dealing with multiple TVs/rooms? And thanks for the inspiration!

[alai]

That simple change would make everything better. I have most of my channel tuning commands set to the channel name only, like "Hey Siri, ESPN". A bit unnatural but it's short and seems to work for now.

[maddox]

@Fofer

Any other suggestions for dealing with multiple TVs/rooms?

In the latest TestFlight beta, the "On Other Device" shortcuts will now prompt you, if you leave the Other Device field blank.

So if you want to make a shortcut that will work on arbitrary devices, and you don't mind being interrupted to choose, you can do this.

[maddox]

@nriley

Could we have the option to display a Collection?

The latest build on TestFlight now has an action for showing a Library Collection. You even have the option to shuffle playback of this collection.

The actions work locally on device and on Other Device.

[Fofer]

I’m loving this new functionality, it opens up so many possibilities. I’m curious about these toggles though, are they even usable yet?

I thought Shortcut support isn’t arriving to macOS until Monterey? (I’m on Big Sur, no developer/beta profiles installed.)

[maddox]

Yeah I think it's Monterey stuff. The Shortcuts app is in pretty much shambles right now as they port it to Catalyst and get it on the Mac. There have been a lot of complaints.

Federico Viticci (viticci)

[mnwxman132]

I’m happy to see this functionality added with the “location” functionality.

I know you added some collection support with shuffle options, etc. Another suggestion for collections would be to add shortcut support for a drop down menu. It’s usually a check box when building shortcuts with lists of items. Perhaps some people could find this option more flexible in their use cases.

Also, it would be really slick to include support for our “channels collections”.

Since it seems like there is now the ability to query the server and channels running on another device, for recordings and such. How about querying for all the custom channel collections? If you could include an optional drop down option for that set of shortcuts, I could see with one shortcut being able choose from all your favorite sports channels, another for opening all your xyz channels, etc.

I wish this all existed a bunch of months ago before I implemented everything manual through the API, so I’m thinking of ways to make this useable for other people going forward.

[nriley]

Collections support is already in there, though there's no way to query for them that I could see from the Shortcuts interface (imagine there is with the API though?)

[maddox]

What are you after?

[nriley]

To be clear I'm happy with the current functionality you added today! It addresses my use case perfectly. As you can see from my screenshot we only have a couple collections right now so building a separate shortcut for each collection works fine.

I was trying to answer @mnwxman132 who I think wants "query" functionality so they can for example let Shortcuts display a menu of collections and let the user pick between them interactively.

[maddox]

I can do the same thing to the Collections field as I did to the Other Devices so that if you don't choose anything, you will be prompted. Doesn't seem like any reason not to. I'll get this stuff in there.

[mgantt87]

Launching a show on another device was working for me last night but I can’t get it to work tonight. It keeps failing to actually launch the show. Other actions such as launch a specific channel on the same device work fine.

[mnwxman132]

@nriley
I was actually referring to channels collections, not library collections.

@maddox

I’m also thrilled with all the new functionality.

I’m not sure it’s useful, but hear me out.
Will there be support for “show channels collections” ?

I’m just thinking for new people to channels and other people who have invested in sorting their stations. I’d guess everyone is sorting things into channels collections.

If they had an action that could “show channel collection” and “show channel collection on other device” that would be really slick.

I’ve seen other actions have the option to “ask before running”. It’s usually an option field that can be checked off when creating the shortcut.

Then someone could build a shortcut and have all their “oldies” pop up.

Hey Siri, show me oldies

The shortcut pops up a list of all the Oldies channels with a drop down list on my iPhone. Then I select one and the channel changes on my Apple TV. Just a thought. For some, they might find this kind of interface useful.

Personally, I’m happy with or with out this, but it could be slick. Perhaps others should chime in before you invest a lot of time in code development.

[AeroR1]

@maddox fyi, the watch shortcut doesn’t work if you want to tune to a virtual channel either locally or sending the command to another device. It won’t go to the virtual channel.

If you substitute it to a non virtual channel, the shortcut works. It’s the same behavior as double click to go to the previous channel. That doesn’t work when trying to go back to a virtual channel either.

Thanks.

[maddox]

@mgantt87

Launching a show on another device was working for me last night but I can’t get it to work tonight.

This was broken. It's fixed in the latest TestFlight beta.

@maddox

I can do the same thing to the Collections field as I did to the Other Devices so that if you don't choose anything, you will be prompted.

This is now in the latest build. If you don't populate a field for anything in the Other Device shortcuts actions, you'll now be prompted.

So you can make a shortcut to open a collection on Family Room, and every time you run it, it will give you a list of choices. The same thing goes for Run Command on Other Device, etc.

[maddox]

@maddox

This was broken. It's fixed in the latest TestFlight beta

Still broken . It's ACTUALLY fixed in the build that's going up right now.

[esherbet]

I can confirm that I've experienced this same behavior too. Virtual Channels do not appear to work with Shortcuts.

[mnwxman132]

I’m having a few weird things going on.

1: I created a couple of test collections to check out the shortcut support. I’ve never been able to see the collections in the library on iOS or iPad, but I briefly saw the collections on the Apple TV beta. Now they have disappeared. I’m using enhanced library.

2: in the shortcuts, even with channels running on other iOS devices, the only “other device” option selection has been the Apple TV

3: edit ignore. Update to latest build fixed this one —-in the iOS shortcuts, I do not see any actions for show collection or show collection on another device. I do see these on the iPad shortcut creation menus. End edit

[maddox]

1. Collections are in the Movies and TV Shows section of the enhanced library.

2. Mobile devices are not eligible targets for this.

3. Clearly some kind of version issue. Check the testflight app and the build number of the Channels app under Support > About