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Popular automation app IFTTT expands through integration

IFTTT (If this, then that) is a wildly popular app for automating certain things you do online or on your device, but it’s about to get a whole lot better after the developers announced integration with other apps.

The way IFTTT works is through recipes. These range from simple news reports (if there’s a breaking news story, then send a notification) to social enhancements (if I favorite a photo on Instagram, then upload the photo to Google Drive), to far more advanced recipes involving smart devices in your home (if I leave work, then turn the heating on at home.)

IFTTT works with a huge number of apps and online services including Facebook, Evernote, Pocket, Twitter, Philips Hue, Google Drive, Nest, UP, and loads more.

Before we carry on with the app’s new development, why not check out our Beginner’s Guide to IFTTT?

So, if you’re familiar with IFTTT you’ll know how useful it can be, but it can also be a pain having to jump into the app to find recipes and search and trawl through it to find relevant ones.

But over the last year, IFTTT has been working with a group of partners to integrate its functionality directly within the app.

“At IFTTT, we’re on a mission to give people more creative control over the services they use. Seamless connections between those services are a big part of that vision,” said the developers on the company blog.

The idea is, users can discover and activate IFTTT recipes without having to leave the service’s app. It’s all very iOS 10 – in Apple’s forthcoming operating system, Apple has opened up much of its functionality and worked directly with some developers to integrate services into Siri, Messages, and Maps.

It’s great to see third-party developers following suit in this mentality by fostering their own partnerships.

So who’s involved? Currently, it’s Abode, Awair, BloomSky, Foobot, Garageio, LIFX, Qapital, Roger, Skybell and Stack Lighting.

Many of those are smart home related, but Qapital is an everyday banking app and Roger is a great free group voice messenger app with supreme audio quality. And there’s even more still in development.

You can read more about IFTTT’s plans over on the app’s blog, where it made the announcement.

Want to learn more about Automation on iOS? Read our Comprehensive Guide to iOS Automation