Automate tasks in Workflow

The more you use iOS 8 and an iPhone, the more you realise how, really, you’ve got a personal computer in your pocket.

The only thing missing from iOS has been programming and automation – until now. Workflow (£2.49 as we write) fixes that by bringing a Mac-like Automator tool to the iOS platform.

Workflow is a clever app that integrates with other apps such as Calendar, Contacts, Music, Photos and Videos, and can create PDF documents, share items on social media, save files to Dropbox and a huge range of other tasks. These workflows can be run from within the Workflow app, or turned into extensions and accessed through the Run Workflow option in the Share menu. Workflow is such a versatile app that you may be at a loss with what to do at first, but there are numerous examples to help you get started.

Here we’re going to show you how to browse actions and turn them into a workflow you can run. We’ll then look at finding examples from the Gallery before creating an extension that turns web pages into PDFs and saves them to Dropbox. We’ll then submit this workflow to the Gallery for other users to find. Let’s go! Lucy Hattersley

The only thing missing from iOS was programming and automation – until now