iOS 16

Isn’t the whole point of Shortcuts to make automation more accessible? Non techy people really shouldn’t be expected to write scripts for these sorts of things :man_shrugging:t4:.

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Shortcuts always leaves me awestruck at what it can do. But I’m dumb so I can only make it play music when I get in the car and turn on low power mode since the Dynamic Island got rid of the quick toggle prompt. I wish I could do more with it though

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It perhaps achieves that, but I don’t think it was ever the intention! The original app that became shortcuts was a utility aimed at power users, and it largely still is that. I view it similarly to apple scripts.

If it wasn’t clear though, that was my attempt at internet tongue in cheek. Of course everyone can and should use it, even if it’s just for the gallery of pre-made shortcuts (they do some really useful things). I’m more complaining that the one thing my friend uses it for is a tutorial they saw on tiktok that winds me up at night time.

I shared one of mine in the Kroo thread earlier today actually. Apple has one in the gallery that does the same thing. Mine is better. :wink:

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I tried and failed to have mine do pretty much the same thing.

I don’t know if it’s the opening an app in the background part, or the simulated clicking ‘play’ part that’s stopping it auto running. Or maybe the issue is just that it’s triggered by a signal coming from ‘outside’ the phone? Either way it’s impossible and it’s a bloody pain.

I miss Tasker on Android for that reason.

Works flawlessly for me

Now try making that work with Spotify, so it doesn’t need you to manually click ‘Run’ from a notification… I’ll wait. :rofl:

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This is one of the reasons I use Apple Music and the rest of the family use Spotify :joy:

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Apple excel when it comes to creating the illusion of choice.

Apple: “Sure, you can use any streaming service you want.”
Also Apple: Cripples the implementation of every streaming service except Apple Music

Spotify is the reason it’s integration is so bad, not Apple.

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It’s up to Spotify to support Shortcuts, not the other way around.

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Surely it’s up to Spotify to ensure they are compatible with Automations (not just Shortcuts)?

I don’t have Spotify but all other third party apps that integrate into Automations can be run without user input. Just tested it.

So as @Revels says it looks like a Spotify issue not an Apple one. Spotify famously like to sulk at Apple

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I know Spotify are the reason you can’t stream direct to an Apple Homehub for example.

But Apple are 100% the reason this Shortcut doesn’t work without having to manually click a shortcut.

I’m not saying an official Spotify Shortcut wouldn’t solve this issue, but Apple are deliberately blocking the below Shortcut from running automatically.

They have literally removed the checkbox required to make it run without the notification!


Still very much a Spotify issue and not Apple. Spotify need to integrate with Shortcuts. You can’t do what you want even with built in Apple apps. It appears to be the Open App step

So surely if this problem is present with all apps, it’s a…you know…Apple issue? :rofl:

I get that all Spotify has to do to make their specific app work is create an official Shortcut, but that wouldn’t solve the issue for literally any other app you wanted to open in a similar scenario.

Up until Jan this year I was a lifelong Android user, so I guess I’m too used to being able to create automations that just…work. :grin:

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The way I see it, it would be an Apple issue if there was no solution at all or if this was specific to third party apps only.

But the way it is, Apple have made a framework for these automations and Spotify chose to be the sulky kid on the playground again.

I can see a myriad reasons why Apple wouldn’t want the phone to be able to execute certain actions unnoticed, without user input, all mainly security/privacy related.

But as you say, might be that you’re still not adjusted to the Apple way of things

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Are Spotify actually complaining about this? Looks like it’s a deliberate choice not to support it.

Flagging massively anticompetitive behaviour by a rival which holds your fate in its hands also doesn’t really strike me as sulking.

Spotify complain a lot, but they haven’t integrated with the watch/homepod like they could/should, which would make things better for their customers and improve revenue.

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And they’re very coy in all their apple messaging over it, that does leave their users with the impression that Apple are blocking them from doing these things.

It’s sneaky, because they’ll support the exact same feature on another platform to reinforce that notion even when it’s not true. Such as the case with HomePod. I’ve had several spotify friends buy HomePods last holiday, not had it work like it does with Alexa or how it does with Apple Music, think it’s apples fault, return the HomePods and complain to Apple. They can’t make spotify support this stuff, and the whole fix for Apple’s so called monopoly which they propose will arguably make it worse for users not better.

At this point the vast majority of the platform advantage things they’re crying about, they could do too if they’d only support the first party APIs for it, but they don’t wanna do the work it seems. I think as time goes on it’s becoming distinctly obvious with the platform in general. They’ve been largely stagnant for years now whilst their competition has made several strides and surpassed them in sound quality and features by some margin now. In addition to the fact Spotify pay the least amount to artists, I can’t fathom why anyone still chooses to use them other than inertia with the social features.

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For me they still have by far the best discovery algorithm though. I left Spotify, firstly for Amazon music and then for Tidal, but neither really were able to find music I liked but hadn’t heard like Spotify could. I may go back to Tidal, but honestly I’m not sure

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It’s annoying when company politics ruins the consumer experience. Apple don’t want to budge on their fees and Spotify are playing games with feature support to try to (falsely) demonstrate harm. Ultimately the customer loses.

We stick with Spotify because for actual music curation and discoverability, it’s still by far the best. Of course I wouldn’t say no to higher bit rates and spatial audio, but these are more nice to haves (for me).

No one pays more to artists than Spotify, by dint of them having the largest paying user base. You continually hear this rubbish about Apple paying more per stream, which ultimately has little relevance and is chiefly because they have no free tier (which leads to paid conversion).

If I was an artist, I know which I’d pick out of:

  • 100k streams at 20p
  • 90k streams at 22p

And even then, the payments go to labels, who ultimately pay the artists a tiny %. It’s strange how they’ve managed to absolve themselves of blame in this.

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