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Agreed. Unfortunately the list that requires manual action are the ones I really wanted to run, particularly bluetooth and time of day:

https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/enable-or-disable-...

The list of auto-approved items seems somewhat arbitrary, but I think they had privacy concerns in mind when they made the list (although it seems stupid that you can't override those protections if you'd like).

All of the ones on the "cannot be run automatically" list are things that a bad actor could do if they had your phone, like wait for a certain time of day, or move your phone to a specific location, or bring it in range of a particular bluetooth or wifi device.

But then, NFC is on the "can be run automatically" list, meaning that a bad actor could touch your phone to a NFC tag to trigger an action, so that doesn't make much sense. The rest of the items on the "can be run automatically" list are all ones that require your phone to be unlocked (I think).

Very odd choice by Apple for something that will be used by relatively few people and would greatly increase the usability of the feature

The NFC automation is tied to specific tags. So the thief would have to be in your house tapping a specific tag you setup.

Yes, but what if the NFC tag was on your keychain with your phone, which the attacker also had? That seems far more likely than being able to spoof a Bluetooth device that your phone had already paired with in the past (yet that one is in the list of "not automatic" choices)

When the attacker has your keys and your phone, you have bigger problems.

That's true about the potential for bad actor, but it's also true for many false positives.

Passive automations based on location, bluetooth, wifi, etc. stand a good chance of many accidental triggers. Connections are flaky, location accuracy is flaky; without some form of throttling mechanism or way to better control accidental firings, it should remain manual.

Thanks for this. Was wondering why my music wasn't automatically shuffling + playing when I got into my car :(

I've heard quite a few times now that some of the reasons these automations aren't completely automatic is to avoid them being abused by people with bad intentions.

Say for example someone setting one up on someone else's phone (without their knowledge) to run every X minutes and using it to track someone's location, without them ever knowing about it.

I'm not entirely sure that's the real reason behind these notifications, but it does seem plausible.

Apps already do this in the background without end users knowledge. Not saying this is right but it seems odd that it's okay for an app to do this to its users but not a user doing this to themself?

It would be nice if these automations could run automatically but perhaps, notify the user that said automation has run and allow them to easily disable the automation.

I don't think it's so much a privacy concern (it certainly is), but more with regards to accidental triggers by actions that are passive and flaky.

Location accuracy isn't always the greatest, particularly indoors; in-and-out connections to wifi/bluetooth are possible when you're on the fringe of its range.

These issues need to be addressed in some form before _true_ automation is given to them.

I would be perfectly happy to receive a popup that an automation had just run. Also, Apple has been pushing for self-adjusting notification preferences. Imagine a popup like:

"The shortcut 'Foo' wants to run. Do you want to allow it?

- Never

- Not this time

- Run once

- Always"

Put an icon next to each shortcut showing whether it's always (or never) allowed, and it seems like the problem would be largely solved without asking much from the end user.

This sounds like a very reasonable solution. I kinda hope this is the way they end up solving it, if this really is the reason they're not truly automatic.

The malicious person would then click "Always Allow" while they are setting up the shortcut. It might be better if it worked like the location/bluetooth prompt, where some time later, it would prompt you if you still wanted that action to occur.

Make the allow and always allow options require Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode…

You don't need them to authenticate again, as the phone would be already unlocked.

What you want to do is periodically (at a random time each time) ask the user if they still want it to do the privacy sensitive action still. This way, it vastly increases the chances of detection if the action was added by a third party.

I agree with one of the replies that a pop up of some sort saying a shortcut has run is good.

They could also do what Gmail and possibly others do when forwarding is added. An obnoxious red colored warning at top of Gmail for 7 days about new forwarding. iOS could do that in some fashion.

I agree it's disappointing. Any interesting automation is basically impossible. I've also found the arrival and leave triggers to only work about half the time, which seems a lot worse than I would expect from Siri location-based reminders which work pretty well.

I have never gotten location based reminders to work. I've tried setting up reminders when I arrive or leave work / home, but they never fired. The worst thing is that there is no indication that tells you why it didn't work.

They seem to be working with me a lot better on iOS 13.1 than they ever have in the past. Might be worth having another try?

that's odd.. those have always worked great for me. Did you let iOS know what your home and/or work locations were?

My guess is that it's a security issue. Suppose your phone were confiscated and you had an automation that revealed some sensitive information to the possessor of the phone, or a compromised third party. You might not want to run the automation under such conditions.

Do you have to unlock the phone to confirm the automation popup?

Ah, just wrote a flattering post here on it, but wasn't aware it still had the manual approval issue which is unfortunate. I understand it for some things like When I arrive home, since otherwise when I'm outside running loops by house, each time I come by the house it would open the garage which wouldn't be good, but so many other cases where manual approval seems odd, and at least should be able to approve with with one click on apple watch with out having to open the notification then approve.

Apple watch is a great idea! I wish they had a shortcuts app on the watch too.

Hopefully they'll have the notifications there, if they don't already.

Notifications (in general) are mirrored between phone and watch, so they do show up on the watch

They could implement to run automatically for the first time and them need approval in the next 30 mins to avoid spamming.

Foursquare third party clients during its hey day that did auto check-in would have a cooling off period of X minutes or hours not to check-in to same location again.

Apple could do something like that. Probably a bit more sophisticated.

I think battery usage could be a primary concern here. Yes, this should continue to improve. Imagine coming home and all your blinds open automatically, lights turn on etc.

I don't think battery usage is the concern, because the alert still triggers - you just have to approve it. By the time you get the alert to approve it, the bluetooth or wifi or location services have already been running (using battery) and triggered the action

> Imagine coming home and all your blinds open automatically, lights turn on etc.

Try home assistant. Open source. Integrates with nearly everything, including apple homekit stuff.

This can already be done in the "home automation" side of the shortcuts / home app. My own house lights up whenever my wife or I come home after dark and goes dark again when we leave.

The failure mode for full automation that's set up by consumers and controlled by a third party via the web can be really bad.

Can you at least approve them on the watch so you don't have to dig out your phone every time?