Has launch cuts gone away?

LaunchCuts
1

I was looking on the App Store and got a message saying so not available.

I’m based in uk. Any ideas?

2

From the Lauchcuts website:

iOS 15 Compatibility : There is a bug in Shortcuts on iOS 15 that prevents syncing of your shortcut library from the Shortcuts to LaunchCuts. Until this bug is resolved by Apple (FB9585913), LaunchCuts will be unavailable to download from the App Store.

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3

Same thing happened with MFCDeck. Not sure if Apple’s bugs have been fixed, but it seems the developer has moved on to other things.

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LaunchCuts and MFC Deck developer here. I pulled these two apps for a number of reasons, which I will briefly explain here:

  1. LaunchCuts had a good run for the 7 or so months leading up to iOS 14 when Shortcuts added folder support. Even through the iOS 14 lifecycle, it had some benefits over the stock app: sub-folders, tags, and the configurable interface. Apple kept improving Shortcuts with iOS 15 and 16, but they also made it more difficult by breaking some sync functionality that I relied on to transfer Shortcut plist information into LaunchCuts and MFC Deck.

So rather than trying to play whack a mole or pray that the bugs will be fixed with each new release, I removed the app from sale. If Apple were to allow third-party apps to run shortcuts without opening the Shortcuts app, I might revisit this.

  1. MFC Deck was launched/announced at the worst time. Right when Apple introduced Home Screen Widgets. Decks and Cards in MFC Deck were kind of like widgets, but powered by Shortcuts.

It was (and I think still is) a good idea, but in practice, it took a lot of effort to get a deck and set of cards set up properly. Adoption of the app wasn’t that great too, so I had to make the decision to keep developing it or pulling it from the store.

Fortunately, there are other apps on the store which do some of the things MFC Deck aimed to accomplish: Scriptable, WidgetPack,WidgetSmith, etc., not to mention all of the apps that have their own widgets.

My focus for the past year and a half has been with MixEffect, which offers deep support for automation with Shortcuts. It targets a much more niche market, but one that has a fervent user base.

Hope this helps you understand why I pulled the two apps from the store.

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