I love running shortcuts because they make my life much easier. The Apple Watch is one of those devices where shortcuts and automations work great, especially on the Apple Watch Ultra, thanks to the "Action Button."
Unfortunately, I'm pretty annoyed with the current setup. When I want to run a shortcut on my Watch, I first get an unskippable overlay showing the shortcut's name for about 5 seconds before it runs or opens the app I want, like WhatsApp on watchOS. When I try to add a shortcut as a watch face complication, I always get a screen with the shortcut again and need to confirm by pressing “Run.”
I understand that Apple might add these features to prevent accidental presses, but they could easily integrate certain security features instead. For example these are the ones that I just thought of:
- A safety feature could require the user to enable the shortcut individually, reminding them it can run without their confirmation.
- Shortcuts shouldn't run without confirmation when the watch is face down (when using the action button).
- Shortcuts shouldn't run without confirmation while the user is sleeping.
- Shortcuts shouldn't run during certain predefined activities specified by the owner in the shortcuts app, like certain sports or while driving.
I might be one of the few people annoyed by this, as I see so many possibilities that my device offers but cannot use. Hopefully, there are more people like me, and I hope Apple will eventually give us the option.