IFTTT goes Mobile | Hacker News Reader

IFTTT goes Mobile

blog.ifttt.com

82 pointsjoecurry33 comments

I was waiting for the IFTTT app for a long time. Really glad it happened.

Now that we are on the IFTTT topic, anyone has any interesting/cool recipes? I think I'm not making the most out of this service, and would like to use it even more.

Not particularly cool but one thing I use it for it saving photos I post to Instagram to my Dropbox. Another use case was posting Instagram photos to a Facebook page. I had the page under a separate account from my personal one which made using Instagram's native integration a pain (it kept trying to pair with my Facebook app which was logged into my personal account).

I also have recipes for my instagrams (and the instagrams of a few friends) to be put in a special folder in my Dropbox. Then (so I don't waste space on my Dropbox) I have a cron that periodically moves them into a local folder on my Mac. And I then occasionally load up that folder as the screen saver photos on my Apple TV. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to make that last step automatic.

The appletv Flickr screensaver is really very nice. That might do the trick.

Here's a couple I've been playing with:

* RSS to email: Use this a lot for important but infrequently updated feeds

* Email me whenever someone posts something for free in my city on Craigslist (fun but had to disable this after a couple of days--useful for more specific searches)

* Push screenshots from my iPhone to Dropbox - no more emailing screenshots to myself

* Push photos from the "Flickr" album on my iPhone to my Flickr account

* Email Instagram photos to my mom

+1 for screenshots to Dropbox. That's amazingly useful, thanks for the idea!

You can do this with the dropbox app on android at least.

The iOS Dropbox app has an option that automatically copies new pictures from the Camera Roll into your dropbox.

This works with any app that dumps things into the camera roll: screen shots, PhotoSynth, actual camera pictures, ...

Here are my current favorite IFTTT recipes for my phone:

Screenshots to Dropbox - Add my iPhone screenshots to a Dropbox folder Post Instagram pictures

Voicemail to Soundcloud - Leave a voicemail for IFTTT and post it to Soundcloud as a private track

Siri to Evernote - Create a Reminder list "Evernote". Use Siri to add a new reminder to the "Evernote" list. Append the reminder as a note to an Evernote notebook.

My best use has been to set up email notifications for various "slow shopping" tasks on Craigslist and eBay. This is super handy when looking for semi-rare or infrequently posted items (e.g. specific out-of-print books), or great deals on items where the seller has priced to move (e.g. email me about craigslist leather couches selling for under $200, dell ultrasharp monitors under $100, etc). If you're not in a hurry to buy stuff, it's a great way to save money.

Yes! This strategy netted me my Aeron chair for 200$

It also proved to me that the following is true about purchasing a used Aeron chair in San Diego:

    limit   -  expected ETA
    > 500$  -  1-2 days
    400-500 -  1-1.5 weeks
    300-400 -  2-4 weeks
    < 300   -  1-2 years

I think it's one of the more popular, but Feedly -> Pocket is brilliant. I used to spend ages in the morning reading through feeds, now I spend a few minutes flipping through Feedly, saving anything I want. When I want to read something later in the day I just open up Pocket and everything's there.

I developed an automatic image downloader from Reddit to Dropbox: https://ifttt.com/recipes/74285

I wrote up a whole post on how I use Evernote and IFTTT. My favorite is the monthly screenshots of my Last.FM listening history.

http://aaronfrancis.com/blog/2013/2/26/how-i-use-evernote-an...

I was surprised there was no action to trigger a push notification to the IFTTT app - is that on the way, or did I miss it?

Have you tried using the https://pushover.net/ action channel? There are quite a few recipes that rely on it for push notifications and it covers both iOS/Android.

I was really hoping that iOS app URL schemes could be used as actions.

An example that comes to mind is "If a new article is added to my Pocket, then open the Pocket app on my iPhone (pocket://)."

This could also be a handy way to launch apps on your device remotely (assuming the device has the IFTTT app open).

It surprises me to see landing pages, such as https://ifttt.com/, that don't provide information themselves.

This. At least I would like to learn how they work when I click on "Learn more". The info that is given there just doesn't tell me anything except for: We make things, depending on your personal info.... Only conclusion this kind of 'info' page leaves is: They probably need my info, so I have to give them full access to my email, instagram, facebook, everything -- WTF? probably just some scammer that made a hippy internet page.

No Android app?

I read on The Verge that they said it's coming at some point[0]. Not much but it seems like it would be far more useful on Android with more OS access.

[0]http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/11/4510408/ifttt-for-iphone-a...

Tasker is a great, mature alternative that will tickle the fancy of most hackers.

Tasker is spectacular. I started with a simple thing to pause my music and read out any texts I get if I've got my headphones in. My favourite is one that turns my phone to silent after a certain time, and if someone calls then automatically hang up and send a message to them saying it's late and I'll call them back.

I've recently added the voice plugin, I need to play around with that more.

Waiting for these guys to announce a name change.

I quite like the Wemo recipes but I wish we could use IFTTT with Arduino or a Pi

I use onx a lot on my android phone https://www.onx.ms

I am not sure why it has not gotten more popular among developers.

Can't understand why the infinite scroll is not... well.. infinite. The forced split per day makes it a lot less useful, as most recipes are not date-specific.

Headline is misleading. It should be "goes iPhone", not "goes mobile" since they don't have Android yet.

Kind of off topic and cynical, but I wonder how this product is making any money. It's free, the iOS app os free.

It probably doesn't, at this point. In fact, I bet they're probably trying to figure that out right now, and likely know already. I think the line "...and this is just the beginning." is very telling. Premium recipes or financial kickbacks for lead generation to other services seem like potential ideas for generating revenue in the future.

I expect they're getting some money from Belkin for pimping the WEMO stuff.

I'm excited for the smartthings integration.

You're not having root on my digital life, IFTTT, as much as I want to use you.

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