New Shortcuts actions in iOS 14.5: Take Screenshot, Orientation Lock and more

Aside from unlocking your iPhone with an Apple Watch, changing the default music player for Siri requests and other perks, iOS 14.5 adds several handy new actions to the Shortcuts app.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Three new Shortcuts actions in iOS 14.5
  • “Take Screenshot” lets you take a screenshot programmatically.
  • “Orientation Lock” lets you change the screen orientation.
  • ”Voice & Data Mode” lets you change the default cellular network.

iPhone screenshots showing the gallery of scripts in the Shortcuts app

3 new Shortcuts actions for you

If you’re a power user who relies on iOS automation through the Shortcuts app, iOS 14.5 will expand on what you can achieve in your workflow scripts. You now have the following new actions available through  the Shortcuts app on iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5:

  • Take Screenshot: With this action, you can take a screenshot of whatever is currently displayed on the screen of your iOS device. You can then save the image to the Photos library, rescale it or pass it to another app in your workflow script.
  • Orientation Lock: As you can imagine, this action toggles the orientation lock on or off, which has the same effect as tapping the Orientation Lock icon in the Control Center.
  • Voice & Data Mode: This allows you to set a specific network to use for cellular data and voice. This can come in handy when changing cellular data modes upon arriving at a specific location, for example. You can set the default network to 5G, 5G Auto and 4G and it has the same effect as changing your default network in Settings → Cellular.

When is iOS 14.5 arriving?

Apple typically goes through a handful of betas before launching an iOS update publicly. The company recently began testing iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5 and other software updates with its registered developers and public beta testers. While purely an educated guess on our part, we think Apple will release these updates by the spring to coincide with the rumored launch of the AirTags item-trackers and other products possibly requiring iOS 14.5 to function.