When it comes to productivity apps, the Apple's app store is loaded. The problem has never been finding the right one to get your mail, make a to-do list, or use to collaborate on ideas. The problem is how to use them together when you start to have things in different places. This is where "If This Then That," or IFTTT, comes in.
Basically, IFTTT is an app that uses a simple assembly language to make "applets" which are light programs to link different tasks together. It is probably better to use an example. I used to help me at work like this: I get emails from a helpdesk sent to my email when someone at work needs IT help. However, I hate checking my email all day to find out what to do next. I do, however, like reminders--Apple's built-in todo list manager. So, I made little applets that say IF I get an email from the helpdesk, THEN put the content of that email in reminders as a task. Here is the start page, where you just put in the "IF" statement first.
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| To start, tap the + to put in your qualifying statement, such as "If I get a certain email", or "If I post a photo on Instagram." |
In function, it saves a lot of time. It is especially helpful when you find yourself frustrated when certain apps do not work together or share with one another. It can be a bit overwhelming at first if you have no experience with programming, but it is very simple. It requires no knowledge of programming languages and works with the apps currently on your phone. It can even go so far as to download photos to a folder if you are tagged in them online on social media, which is a great applet for keeping up with your online identity. It can also send you photos from blogs and connect your news sources. The most useful parts though are how it handles syncing your calendars, to-do lists, mail and or productivity apps. It's like an automation glue that can hold them all together.
From a design standpoint, it is very clear and clean. The above image of applets shows just how minimal they look on the surface. Some of them are doing heavy under the design, but the clean, single-sentence command images laid out in an almost "Instagram-feed" kind of way, make it very intuitive. The above image is a selection of scenes, but the list of your current saved applets looks the same. When you tap one, you get a bit more detail and a simple "on-off" slider. This made it great for exploring what the app can do. If anything doesn't work in the way you thought, just slide it back to "off." This method of running as stopping the scripts with a simple toggle is one of the best features, and it is what makes the app fun to try out and explore.
Here is an example of one of my own running applets. When this is on, which is always, Any email I star gets made into a reminder task. This is also an example of some of the applets you can explore that have already been made by other users. This one is from Google.
Overall, this has become my favorite app of the past year. It works. It does what it says, and it actually makes other apps better than they are natively.