Really jazzed about releasing two new shortcuts and an update to Cronios this weekend. I now have developed three distinct methods for running shortcuts automatically in the background:
- Date and Time: Cronios
- Remote Trigger from iCloud-connected device: WatchCuts + Cronios
- Location: GeoCuts + Cronios
Cronios 1.3.0 adds a new Cron Job Assistant that guides you in creating cron jobs. This was one of the more challenging aspects to the earlier releases of Cronios — getting familiar with cron schedule expressions can take time. The new Cron Job Assistant takes a lot of guesswork out of scheduling your cron jobs with a step-by-step wizard.
Second, cron jobs now have access to the Repeat Interval feature of both WatchCuts and GeoCuts. The Repeat Interval lets you set the minimum amount of time before the cron job’s shortcut can run again. You can set the shortcut to run once, run every time, or run after a certain number of minutes, hours, or calendar days have passed.
Together, these features separate the (1) evaluation of a cron job from (2) running of the shortcut. Now, you can have your cron job evaluate every minute but run every 5 minutes, 3 hours, or 1 calendar day.
WatchCuts lets you trigger the running of shortcuts on your iPhone and iPad straight from any iCloud-connected device: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and even iCloud.com!
Check out the exciting launch trailer for WatchCuts on YouTube. The old SportsScope theme song keeps on paying dividends.
GeoCuts brings automatic triggering of shortcuts based on your current location. Other solutions require tapping on a notification banner, but GeoCuts + Cronios lets you do this all automatically (or on-demand via Siri).
All these shortcuts have been released under the MIT license. Documentation and localization files are ready to be translated from each shortcut’s dedicated page on my GitHub page.
I’m excited to see what solutions the Shortcuts community comes up for automating iOS with Cronios, WatchCuts, and GeoCuts! Please enjoy!
tow.com 
Adam – your apps are awesome! I’m curious what tool(s) you use to create / manage such complex shortcuts. I have ideas for fairly complex shortcuts, but using the iOS shortcuts app is just not appealing to me.
Many thanks,
Doug
I used the Shortcuts app on an iPhone X and an iPad Pro 12.9. It’s easier to develop on the iPad Pro, but there’s still a lot of scrolling involved. ScPL is a possible alternative, though I don’t know about it’s viability in the iOS 13 world of Shortcuts. The manner in which complex shortcuts are made has taken a step back in iOS 13, so I think I’ll switch to making iOS apps that donate actions to Shortcuts.