Making utilitarian use of iOS’ Notification Center has previously been reserved for those who brave the jailbreaking process. Now though, a new app, Quickpick, available in the App Store, allows you to create shortcuts for a number of useful tasks, right from the Notification Center.
Quickpick takes advantage of the availability of custom URLs in iOS, making the app virtually endless with regards to possibilites. Things like tweeting or making phone calls are just the tip of the iceberg.
Using the app is extremely straightforward, as you are only provided with a few options. When you launch the app, simply press the “+” sign. This will allow you to enter a title and a URL. If you don’t want to bother with figuring out the URL for making a call, or sending a text, you can simply click “Composer” to have these generated automatically.
Here are a few URL schemas of interest, to help get your gears turning:
twitter://post?message – Send a Tweet, via the Twitter App
fb://friends – Open your friends list in Facebook
fb://feed – Open your Facebook News Feed
maps:// – Launch the maps app
youtube:// – Open the YouTube app
itms:// – Open iBooks
You can see how deep the rabbit hole goes here, and there are a ton of URL schemas that iOS supports for you to play with.
One thing I’ve noticed that’s rather annoying is the lack of iMessage support via the composer. It’d be nice to be able to select text message and choose a contact who only has an iMessage email stored.
You can grab Quickpick immediately from the App Store for $0.99, and it works on all of the iOS devices (that have Notification Center, duh). Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
UPDATE: Looks like Apple has pulled the app from the Store. Sad, we know. We’ll keep you posted if it pops back up.
