The Control Centre, accessible anywhere on the device with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen provides easy access to some of the basic functionalities which would otherwise require going into the Settings every time. Though Apple says having Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on all the time does not affect the battery life, it’s hard to believe so. Plus, people don’t like walking around with their Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned ON all the time on their devices and be vulnerable to possible attacks. Until now, the only possible solution was to go into the Settings and then turn off the settings for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi individually. Apparently, with the new Shortcuts app (available for iOS 12), you can turn OFF Bluetooth or Wi-Fi with a single tap. For those unaware, Shortcuts is a new iOS app available only for devices running iOS 12, using which users can automate most of their daily tasks, in addition to some complex scripting tasks. It is pretty much similar to the Workflow and IFTTT app for automation and is a by-product of the Workflow app which got acquired by Apple last year. We did a detailed overview of what you can do with Shortcuts, so check it out here.
Shortcut for turning OFF Bluetooth
Open the ‘Shortcuts’ app and hit the ‘+’ icon on the top right corner. On the ‘Search’ card below, search for Bluetooth. Select ‘Set Bluetooth’ from the options. Under ‘Set Bluetooth’, turn the toggle OFF. On the top right corner, tap the settings icon next to Share icon to customise the shortcut by changing things like Name and Icon.
Shortcut for turning OFF Wi-Fi
Open the ‘Shortcuts’ app and hit the ‘+’ icon on the top right corner. On the ‘Search’ card below, search for WiFi. Select ‘Set Wi-Fi’ from the options. Under ‘Set Wi-Fi’, turn the toggle OFF. On the top right corner, tap the settings icon next to Share icon to customise the shortcut by changing things like Name and Icon.
There are three ways to execute these Shortcuts-
From the widgets page
To execute the Shortcut from the widgets page, you need to enable the ‘Show in Widget’ option in the Shortcuts settings. After that’s enabled, you need to add the Shortcuts Widget in the widgets page, for which you need to swipe right from the Home Screen and hit the ‘Edit’ button at the bottom. On the next screen, you need to find the ‘Shortcuts’ widget and hit the green ‘+’ sign to add it. Now whenever you need to turn OFF Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, you can do so by swiping right from the Home Screen and tapping on the Shortcut from the widget.
With a phrase using Siri
To assign a voice command to trigger the Shortcut, you need to go into the settings of the Shortcut and hit the ‘Add to Siri’ option. Here, you need to hit the red record button at the bottom to record the phrase that you would like to use to trigger the Shortcut. Once that’s set up, you can trigger the Shortcut by calling out the phrase to Siri every time you need to turn OFF Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Like an app
To run the Shortcut like an app, you need to first add the Shortcut to your Home Screen. For this, you need to go into the settings for the Shortcut and select the ‘Add to Home Screen’ option from there. Once done, you will get an app icon for the Shortcut on your Home Screen. And just like you would execute any other app, you can tap on this Shortcut to execute it.
How does this work?
When you select the ‘Set Bluetooth’ or ‘Set Wi-Fi’ option and toggle it OFF, you are setting the desired state for these settings as soon as the Shortcut is executed. That way, when the Shortcut is run, your desired output is achieved, which in this case is turning off the settings for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Alternately, if the toggle is turned ON, the execution of the Shortcut would result in the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi being turned ON. Now that you have the Shortcuts for both set up, you no longer need to go into Settings and can instead turn them OFF in any of the three ways mentioned above. To learn more about Shortcuts, follow this link.
