Roger Fingas
On Thursday, IFTTT — a platform that automates links between many hardware and software platforms — announced the addition of support for the native iOS Calendar app, as well as Apple's App Store.
The current Calendar applets mainly let users add events, for instance creating one whenever an iOS reminder is saved. Some other examples include weather forecasts, Fitbit sleep logs, and even generating items from Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant commands.
Alexa support is limited since the applet doesn't support specific times. Users can, however, trigger repeated events.
With the App Store, applets are geared mostly towards keywords searches, the Top 10 charts, and monitoring price drops. IFTTT is also sharing regular lists of its favorite titles, and one applet will save the release notes from apps to a Google spreadsheet.
IFTTT's library for both categories will likely expand quickly, since the site lets users brew custom applets using any supported device or service, including smarthome accessories.
The site already supports a range of other Apple-related functions, such as Contacts, Photos, and Safari's Reading List.
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1 Comment
Meh. I've used IFTTT a few years back with Hue lights for very simple applications like weather alerts and such. I haven't revisited it for a while and probably won't now that I've looked at Workflow. At the time IFTTT was a simple IF condition THEN action. I've read that they have applets now but haven't looked into it since Workflow is a lot more flexible and can string a variety of instructions. And now that Apple acquired it there could be great possibilities ahead. Ironically they shut down the Mac Automation group not long ago so hopefully it's because they saw Workflow as a possible successor.