This app makes you want to get your phone stolen

The “Shortcuts” app on iOS lets you build your own shortcuts out of your favorite apps. It takes a while to realize just how much you can do with it.

With this app, I can pick a list of actions to run automatically whenever a condition is met — a message from a specific person containing a given keyword, a tap on a button, or an alarm going off.

Take losing my phone, or having it stolen. If I send an email to my own inbox containing a particular word — “test”, say — the following commands can fire on the phone:

→ turn on low power mode → take a photo with the front camera → get the phone's location → send the location and the photo to my email address

I then receive an email with my phone's location and a photo of whoever is holding it. So I know straight away where my phone is.