More than a simple redesign
MacRumors published in the early hours of June 9 a dedicated deep dive on the Shortcuts app in iOS 27, describing it as a considerably significant upgrade. The app, born as Workflow and acquired by Apple in 2017, gains capabilities that bring it closer to advanced automation, traditionally the domain of scripts and third-party tools on Mac.
Context: Shortcuts as system glue
With iOS 27, Siri AI can create Shortcuts from natural language descriptions: the user describes what they want to automate and the system generates the corresponding flow. But the app upgrade goes beyond this: it involves the internal structure of automation, the ability to interact with multiple apps in sequence, and integration with App Intents, the framework that replaces SiriKit as the connection point between third-party apps and the system.
Implications for developers
With SiriKit deprecated starting from Xcode 27, App Intents becomes the mandatory channel for exposing app functions to Siri and Shortcuts. The massive Shortcuts upgrade is therefore also an indirect signal to development teams: those who have not yet migrated to App Intents will find iOS 27's new automation features inaccessible for their app. MacRumors describes the full details in its dedicated article.