by Jason Snell
iPhones can now automate tasks using NFC
Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge writes about the latest update to Launch Center Pro, which adds support for NFC scanning:
…even at their most elegant, the tags still send you through a series of jumps to your final destination. Tapping a tag pops up a notification on your phone, tapping the notification brings you into Launch Center Pro, and only then will Launch Center Pro launch the action it’s supposed to be doing, whether that’s sending a text, playing a song, opening a website, or any of the other myriad options possible.
I’m not surprised. Apple’s next step in iOS automation needs to be improving the flow of automated tasks. I appreciate the security concerns around scanning NFC tags, reading bar codes, running Shortcuts, and the rest—but right now there are too many barriers that slow down the usability of this stuff. It all takes too many taps and displays too much visual clutter. (Not to mention that we need the ability to fire off Shortcuts at intervals or specific times.)
Step one was getting this stuff up and running. Step two is making it feel a bit more magical.