Automation on your iPhone is really helpful and can save you a lot of time and headaches

Jul 26, 2014 21:44 GMT  ·  By
IFTTT is the premiere site for automation on the web. They have recently added channels for your iPhone and channels that are related to your location, and that makes a world of difference. 
 
There are over 1,000 recipes that have some connection to your iPhone on IFTTT, but let's start with the basics. IFTTT is a service that lets you create connections with one simple statement: "If This Then That." In other words, if there’s a trigger, it can perform an action.

To put it in layman's terms, imagine how easy it would be to have IFTTT send you an email when somebody posts a picture of you on Facebook and then send that picture to your Dropbox account. Also, when there's a new article posted on a website, it would be handy to have that RSS Entry added to a document in your Dropbox account and for you to get a push notification on your iPhone.

 
Now include the power of the iPhone and you will get the complete picture. In order to benefit from the awesome channels and recipes, you need to install the free IFTTT app on your device. It even works on iPad and the interface is simple and elegant. 
 
You may forget to save your photos and just to make it easier, the first recommendation is to use the following recipe: "Save my iOS photos to Dropbox.
 
Sure you can enable Automatic Camera Upload in the Dropbox app for iOS, but you need to be reminded to open the app every once in a while and keep it open until the pictures are loaded. 
 
Another great one is "Save iOS Screenshots to Evernote" – That helps you keep track and have all your screenshots OCR'd and ready to browse if needed.  
 
The Notifications-based recipes are really useful. For example, you could get a notification if there's rain tomorrow. How awesome is that? 
 
Another great recipe is related to your contacts. We have heard lots of smartphone users who do not back up their phones and when the device crashes they lose contacts and other relevant information. This recipe helps you Back up your Contacts to a Google Spreadsheet as soon as you enter them in the appropriate app. 
 
And last, you have to make use of the new Location-Based features for iOS in IFTTT. With this recipe, you can Let your Facebook Friends know when you are back in town. You can choose the area and set a custom message to be posted on Facebook.