This startup lets you create a button on your phone that does (almost) anything you want
That's the idea behind "Do," IFTTT's new suite of apps that includes Do Button, Do Camera, and Do Note, all of feature a simple button that can be customized into a time-saving shortcut.
IFTTT is the startup behind the popular If This Then That (IFTTT) web and mobile app that allowed users to create "recipes" of actions strung together to perform automated tasks.
On Thursday, IFTTT is branching out and launching its more consumer-friendly Do Button apps with the hopes of showing people how easy it can be to create a button that does (almost) anything you want.
While IFTTT includes a handful of popular of these recipes within the app, you can also create your own and share them with the rest of the Do community, which keeps things creative and collaborative.
Best of all, all three apps have their own widget, so you can easily access your customized buttons without unlocking your phone.
Here's how the three different Do apps work.
Do Button:
Do Button is all about making something happen. Turn your Philips Hue lights on and off, program it to set your Nest thermostat to a certain temperature, track your next journey in Google Drive, or send an email to your wife that you're on your way home.
All of your actions or recipes are kept within the Do Button app itself, so if you want to switch between which type of button you want to use, you just swipe until you find it. After that, just tap the button and you're done.
Do Camera:
Do Camera is similar to Do Button, but every action is tied to a photo. Upload the photo you just took to a specific Facebook album, email it to a friend, or take a picture of a business card or recipe and upload it directly into Evernote. The idea is to make the entire process of sending your photos somewhere faster; while taking a photo and sharing it usually takes at least a couple of taps, Do Camera bundles all those actions into one button press.
Do Note:
Do Notes follows the same idea, but this time gives you some space to write a note down to accompany the action. It's a small difference, but it allows you to create calendar appointments, email a message to your boss, tweet, or compose a note for Evernote while on the go.
IFTTT is trying to keep things extremely simple with these three apps. And while it could make more sense to bundle all of these buttons into one, singular Do Button app, IFTTT thinks that unbundling each style of action into its own app will keep things from being overly complicated.
All three of the Do Button apps are available for iPhone and Android, and you can download them below.