Automation April: A Link Management Workflow and S-GPT 
This week, John explains his new link management workflow, combining a series of apps and shortcuts, and Federico shares more about his S-GPT shortcut that integrates ChatGPT with Apple’s OSes.
Customizing S-GPT with Different Personalities Earlier this week on MacStories, I shared S-GPT, my shortcut to have conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant from Apple devices and integrate it with native functionalities of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS. Today on MacStories, I also released a small 1.0.1 update with some initial bug fixes and improvements for Apple Watch users. In the...
Making Dictation Input the Default Option in an Apple Watch Shortcut I’ve already started working on updates to S-GPT, the shortcut for ChatGPT I released earlier this week on MacStories. Among the (many) features I wasn’t able to add in time for version 1.0, there is one that is surprisingly tricky to figure out in Shortcuts, and which deserves a mention here: how to ensure that...
I just released a small bug fix update for S-GPT, my shortcut to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model with the Shortcuts app on all Apple platforms.
Version 1.0.1 of S-GPT is a relatively minor update that comes with an initial round of improvements based on early feedback I’ve received for the shortcut, including:
Additionally, I also realized that the usage tips that S-GPT was displaying every time it asked you to enter some text may have been nice the first three times you used the shortcut, but became annoying very quickly. That was especially true when using S-GPT with Siri in a voice context since they would be read aloud every time. For these reasons, I removed tips and simplified the shortcut’s questions to “What do you want to ask?” and “Want to follow up?”.
In case you missed my introduction of S-GPT earlier this week, you can read the original story here and find out more about how the shortcut works and what it does. I updated the links to the S-GPT and S-GPT Encoder shortcuts in the story to the latest version; you can also find the updated shortcuts in MacStories Shortcuts Archive.
I just released a small bug fix update for S-GPT, my shortcut to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model with the Shortcuts app on all Apple platforms.
Version 1.0.1 of S-GPT is a relatively minor update that comes with an initial round of improvements based on early feedback I’ve received for the shortcut, including:
Additionally, I also realized that the usage tips that S-GPT was displaying every time it asked you to enter some text may have been nice the first three times you used the shortcut, but became annoying very quickly. That was especially true when using S-GPT with Siri in a voice context since they would be read aloud every time. For these reasons, I removed tips and simplified the shortcut’s questions to “What do you want to ask?” and “Want to follow up?”.
In case you missed my introduction of S-GPT earlier this week, you can read the original story here and find out more about how the shortcut works and what it does. I updated the links to the S-GPT and S-GPT Encoder shortcuts in the story to the latest version; you can also find the updated shortcuts in MacStories Shortcuts Archive.
S-GPT is a shortcut to have conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT assistant on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The shortcut supports both text conversations as well as voice interactions when used inside Siri. S-GPT comes with native system integrations on Apple platforms including the ability to process text from your clipboard, summarize text found in photos, export conversations to Files and Finder, and even create playlists in the Music app. The shortcut requires an OpenAI API token and a helper shortcut called S-GPT Encoder that needs to be downloaded separately.
This is a helper shortcut for S-GPT that needs to be downloaded and installed separately. Without this shortcut, S-GPT won’t work.
It’s the inaugural week of the second annual edition of Automation April, and to celebrate the occasion, I’ve been working on something special: today, I’m introducing S-GPT, an advanced conversational shortcut for ChatGPT that bridges OpenAI’s assistant to native system features of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS.
S-GPT (which stands for Shortcuts-GPT) is free to use for everyone, but it requires an OpenAI account with an associated pay-as-you-go billing plan since it takes advantage of OpenAI’s developer API, which has a cost. S-GPT was built with the latest ChatGPT API, and it can be used both with the existing ChatGPT 3.5 model or – if you have access to it – the ChatGPT 4 API.
While the shortcut is free for MacStories readers, I will be publishing a detailed, in-depth Automation Academy class soon for Club MacStories Plus or Premier members to explain the techniques and strategies I used to build this shortcut. I genuinely think that S-GPT is, from a technical perspective, my best and most advanced work to date; I hope my Academy class will help others learn some useful tips for Shortcuts and, in return, make even better automations for our contest.
With that said, let’s look at what S-GPT is and what you can do with it.
Automation April: Shortcuts Check-In
Sending Custom Push Notifications with Alerty and Shortcuts Earlier this week on MacStories, I mentioned Alerty, a relatively new web service that allows you to send push notifications to an API and have them delivered to all your devices signed into the Alerty website. What’s unique about Alerty, and the reason why I wanted to do something with it this Friday, is that...
The Potential of Obsidian Bookmarks As I recently mentioned on both AppStories and Connected, I’ve been using Notion as my note-taking app for the past few months. There are various reasons behind this experiment: The huge letdown of Stage Manager last year set me down a path of experimentation with all kinds of hardware and software in my life to...
I enjoyed this explanation by The Verge’s Tom Warren on how Microsoft’s Phone Link app – which has long allowed Android users to connect their smartphones to a Windows PC – has been updated to support iOS notifications and sending texts via iMessage. From the story:
The setup process between iPhone and PC is simple. Phone Link prompts you to scan a QR code from your iPhone to link it to Windows, which automatically opens a lightweight App Clip version of Phone Link on iOS to complete the Bluetooth pairing. Once paired, you have to take some important steps to enable contact sharing over Bluetooth, enable “show notifications,” and allow system notifications to be shared to your PC over Bluetooth. These settings are all available in the Bluetooth options for the device you paired to your iPhone.
And:
Microsoft’s Phone Link works by sending messages over Bluetooth to contacts. Apple’s iOS then intercepts these messages and forces them to be sent over iMessage, much like how it will always automatically detect when you’re sending a message to an iPhone and immediately switch it to blue bubbles and not the green ones sent via regular SMS. Phone Link intercepts the messages you receive through Bluetooth notifications and then shows these in the client on Windows.
I got access to the updated version of Phone Link on my PC today, and this integration is pretty wild and it actually works, albeit with several limitations.
First, the setup process is entirely based on an App Clip by Microsoft, which is the first time I’ve seen and used an App Clip in real life. Essentially, my understanding is that this works similarly to how an iPhone can pair with an old-school Bluetooth car system: the iPhone and PC pair via Bluetooth, and you can then provide the PC with access to your notifications and contacts from iOS’ Bluetooth settings. This is the same UI I have for my KIA Sportage’s system, which uses regular Bluetooth to pair with my iPhone and can also display contacts and missed calls.
The difference between my car and Phone Link, of course, is that with Phone Link you can type text messages from a PC and they will be sent as iMessages on iOS. This bit of dark magic comes with a lot of trade-offs (check out Warren’s full story for the details on this), but it works for individual contacts. I’ve been able to start a conversation with John, reply to his messages from Windows notifications, and even send him URLs1, and they were all correctly “intercepted” by iOS and sent over as iMessages. I’ve also been impressed by the ability to clear notifications from a PC and have them go away on iOS’ Lock Screen immediately.
The limitations of Phone Link for iPhone users mean you’ll always have to fall back to the actual iOS device for something – whether it’s posting in an iMessage group or sending a photo or acting on notifications – but for quick messages, glancing at notifications, and clearing them, I think this integration is more than good enough.
John
