The latest iPhone update introduces big features like Live Activities and Clean Energy Charging, but those aren't the only things you'll notice different on iOS 16.1. If you build your own shortcuts in the Shortcuts app, there are a few things you'll definitely want to know about the new software. It's not a massive feature drop as with iOS 16.0, but they are important changes.

You can use a few more actions in your shortcuts, but the most significant changes in Shortcuts affect glyphs. The changes below also appear on iPadOS 16.1 for iPad and macOS 13 Ventura for Mac, which are still in beta.

Apple added almost 60 actions to Shortcuts with iOS 16.0, but you'll see a few more new ones on iOS 16.1. Here they are and what they do:

However, one action has been removed on iOS 16.1:

And at least one received a minor name change:

Some of the new actions on early iOS 16.0 betas were absent on the stable iSO 16.0 release, such as seven additional actions for the Books app and "Delete Messages" for the Messages app. Those are still missing on iOS 16.1, but the new update did bring back the "Search in Shortcuts" option seen above.

Before iOS 16.1, there were only three categories — Objects, People, and Symbols — to sort glyphs in Shortcuts' icon picker. With so few groupings, browsing for an icon you didn't know the name of was exhausting. (Left GIF below.)

Now there are 29 total categories for easier glyph browsing. They are all listed alphabetically below, not in the order they appear in Shortcuts). (Right GIF below.)

However, unlike before iOS 16.1, when you search for a glyph, all results are in one big grid; It no longer separates search results by categories.

Having 29 categories for browsing glyphs is helpful, and you would expect all of the glyphs to appear in one category only. That's not the case. For even faster browsing, some glyphs appear in multiple categories. So if you're looking for a sun, you'll find it under the Nature, Weather, and Keyboard categories, not just one of them.

Some glyphs might show in multiple sections, as seen below. The names in parentheses are the names according to Voice Control. If there are no parentheses, Voice Control also uses the listed name.

The new Shortcuts update also includes an anti-feature, so to speak, where Apple took something away from us. Actually, it took a lot away. From my count, Apple removed 100 glyphs when it introduced categories.

It's possible the Apple developers didn't immediately know which category the glyphs should go in or left out entire categories by accident or with the intention to add them back later. But for now, you can see everything that's missing below. The names in parentheses are the names according to Voice Control. If there are no parentheses, Voice Control also uses the listed name.

Don't Miss: 18 Big iPhone Features and Improvements on iOS 16.1

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