Automation is something many mobile users don’t take advantage of.

Smartphones are, well … smart. They’re capable of so much more than snapping photos, sending and receiving messages, and browsing the Web. They’re capable of being contextually aware, learning their owners, and sometimes taking care of business with no user input whatsoever.

Services like Google Now and Cortana provide automation to some degree, but as impressive as they both are, Google’s and Microsoft’s virtual assistants are just the tip of the iceberg.

Tasker is an application available on Android. If you’re into automation, it will be one of the best $3 you will ever spend on an Android app. You can control various aspects of your phone and trigger different events and states based on different types of input. For instance, when I plug my headphones into the headphone jack on my Moto X, Pocket Casts opens and Bluetooth turns off. Or if my Pebble is connected and I open Spotify, the Music Boss application on my Pebble will launch and the default music app will switch to Spotify for remote controls. There are virtually limitless possibilities with Tasker.

If you’re looking for a similar experience for free, paired with a fair amount of web services, IFTTT (if this, then that) just released its Android application, as well as six new Android channels for controlling your device: Device, Location, Notifications, Phone Call, Photos, and SMS. Those six channels can be linked and intertwined with 86 other supported channels in IFTTT, such as Craigslist, Facebook, Feedly, Instagram, Pocket, reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and more.

I could write all day about all the possibilities the IFTTT app opens up for Android and iOS users, but I’d rather share with you some of my favorite and most useful IFTTT recipes for mobile users. Enjoy!

 

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Of course, we know you want to stay up to date on all our videos, so we created this recipe just for you. Every time a new video is uploaded to our YouTube channel, you will get a notification in your notification shade.

(I have no way to test this RSS feed, at least not until a new video is uploaded, so if anyone has trouble with this particular recipe, shoot me a mention on Twitter and I can provide a better feed URL.)

 

What are your favorites?

These are just a few of my favorite recipes. There are literally thousands upon thousands of pre-made recipes to choose from and thousands more for you to create on your own. If you’ve been tinkering with IFTTT, feel free to share your favorite recipes below!