ShowRandomColor

Demo of Siri shortcuts for iOS 12 using Intents

Overview of how to implement Siri shortcuts

There are two approaches to creating Siri shortcuts:

NSUserActivity

• Simple to implement
• Open your app and trigger an action via a shortcut or Hey Siri phrase
• Little customisation

Intents

• More complex than NSUserActivity
• You can customise the experience for the user
• Open an app extension in Siri via a Hey Siri phrase
• Include custom responses from Siri and a custom UI that Siri will present

In this app we use the Intents-based approach. See also https://github.com/russell-archer/PicSearch for an example using an NSUserActivity-based approach.

Overview of the demo app

This is a demo app that allows the user to request a random color. The color can be displayed either:

• In the ShowRandomColor app, or
• By tapping on a Siri shortcut (color is displayed in Siri via an app extension)
• Via a Hey Siri phrase (color is displayed in Siri via an app extension)