I just tried to create a basic Shortcut that opens a YouTube link in Brave and strips out some tracking junk. In theory, this is what the Shortcuts app is made for. In reality, I feel like I was trapped in a procedurally generated UI puzzle designed by someone who hates their own users.
I started with a simple clipboard check. Then I tried to combine two pieces of text: a Brave URL prefix and the cleaned link. Easy, right? Except not one part of this was straightforward. The “Combine Text” action doesn’t show an “Add New Item” option unless you first pick a variable, but it also won’t show variables unless you tap them in exactly the right order. I kept seeing placeholder blocks with no explanation. I tapped into fields and got autocorrected. I typed out a variable name, only to find out that this does absolutely nothing. You have to use the magic wand to select the actual value, or it doesn’t work. And this is never explained.
The entire app is full of disappearing options, invisible logic paths, unlabeled state changes, and behavior that breaks if you so much as look at it wrong. At one point, the app simply refused to let me add a second input to a Combine Text block. I had to delete it, re-add it, and then tap around in exactly the right order to make the UI un-break itself.
I never even got it working. I go too frustrated and decided to take a break and revisit it later. It wasn’t even frustrating in a normal way, it was exhausting. This was supposed to be the easy, Apple-style way to automate tasks. Instead it felt like a hostile interface wrapped in iOS visual polish. The worst part? I don’t think this is a bug. I think it’s designed this way on purpose, so us plebs don’t get too big for our britches, and try to breach the garden wall.
Shortcuts is supposed to make automation easier. What it actually does is hide every single useful function behind inconsistent menus and input traps. I’ve written code in a terminal that felt friendlier.
