How to use Siri Shortcuts to replace the iOS app icon

Apple's Shortcuts application continues to impress with a series of seemingly endless possibilities, such as setting a reminder to remember brushing or getting directions to the next event.

One of the most popular applications, Shortcuts are a quick and easy way to tweak your home screen. Because Apple has long resisted personal customization on smartphones, the solution is to respond to this problem.

Basically, this shortcut creates a new button for your favorite application, assuming Facebook, and swapping the traditional icon with something else you choose. You can swap it with any other icon from the app store or upload your own icon. This may seem complicated, but once you've solved the first two icons, it's hard to stop until every app looks really different.

Begin

The most important step to get started is installing Shortcuts applications on your device. That is easily done by opening this link from your iPhone. Very easy, right? Now, in Shortcuts application, click on the shortcut and you will see a menu appear like the image below.

Please select the second option, ' Launch App URL scheme '.

URL Scheme

The next pop-up window asks you to enter 'URL scheme'. This may sound a bit technical, but it's really super easy. 'Scheme' is only part of the URL, similar to the traditional URL with 'http:////'. In this case, we will enter the name of the application you want to follow by ': //'. In other words, for Twitter, you will enter 'Twitter: //'.

Add a command title

After adding the scheme, the Shortcuts application will ask you to enter the command title. Again, what really sounds like this technique is just to ask what you want to call the new application. You can call it "Twitter", "The Good Place", "Jack's Creation", "My Favorite App", or any other name you like.

"Hunting" icons

Up to now, you have overcome most of the technical "hard" parts. Now let's move on to another interesting part. The next pop-up window in the app wants you to search the app store for any icons to use. You can search on the iOS App Store or Mac App Store.

Please search for 'Twitter' and click Done. You will see a list of most of the Twitter applications available on the App Store. The Twitterrific application icon looks very nice, so choose it. From here, you can go to the next step or go back and start looking for another icon.

Add to the main screen

This step is quite simple because Apple has added instructions right on the screen. Click the Share button , then click ' Add to Home Screen ' and Safari will do the rest. Back to your main screen, you will see a new icon and it looks beautiful.

There is a small warning for this whole process. Because the application requires using Shortcuts to create custom icons, clicking the icon will open the Shortcuts app before opening the application you want. In other words, once you click on your icon, there will be a delay of two to three seconds before Twitter opens. To be able to customize the main screen, you will need to pay a small fee, even if it is not officially supported by Apple.

The aforementioned instructions are great if you just want to open the Twitter application. What if you want to open the application directly to compose a new tweet? Doing that is easy, by repeating all the instructions, except this time, your 'scheme' URL will be 'twitter: // new'.

Hope you are succesful.