Siri Intent Extension - How to just read result?

Hi folks,


I'd like to add a Siri Intent Extension to my Objective-C project. Users should be able to pick it in the "Shortcuts" app to trigger it by voice. The extension should only read out a result string to the user. Sounds quite simple, doesn't it?


So far I've enabled Siri capability for my app, added the Intent Extension, defined the intent with a fixed result, and implemented a dummy handler, but Siri doesn't show my shortcut and I assume that's because I haven't donated the shortcut so far.


Unfortunately I cannot get my brain around the concept of donations (in this context): My app is not going to be launched, there is no specific workflow related to the shortcut, but it should just tell the user what their next lesson a school is: no required parameter, neiter any confirmation, nor a user interaction, not even a specific Intention UI...


Is a donation required to make Siri recognize my shortcut? So the app needs to be run at least once to use the shortcut? Does my app need to request Siri access from the user? All examples I found were dealing with more complex scenarios, including app integrations. Do I need to walk all this road?


Any help is appreciated, Mattes

Accepted Reply

The issue of not reading intent results was fixed by Apple with iOS 14.5 - or earlier as I didn't check for quite a time. No code change done...

Replies

I solved this issue by adding Siri intents in the app delegate after launching the app. Works nicely with iOS < 14: The user can define a workflow with one shortcut, e.g. "Next Lesson", and Siri reads the result from my intent definition (voice only dialog response).

With iOS 14 Siri isn't reading responses anymore, so the shortcut is run, displaying the result, but without any audio feedback. Unfortunately this was the main purpose of my intents, asking Siri just for some information to be read loud.

Is this a general design decision in iOS? What do I need to implement to make Siri (again) reading intent results? Currently I can only think of a bypass, putting the result text into the clipboard and adding a second shortcut reading the clipboard (with is an iOS-provided one). Any thoughts?

Mattes
The issue of not reading intent results was fixed by Apple with iOS 14.5 - or earlier as I didn't check for quite a time. No code change done...
The issue of not reading intent results was fixed by Apple with iOS 14.5 - or earlier as I didn't check for quite a time. No code change done...