- Safari extensions
- App extensions
- Extensions in Siri Shortcuts
Below we discuss the two most common extensions on Apple devices: the Safari extensions that allow you to extend browsers and other apps with extra functions and the app extensions that have been introduced since iOS 8 to exchange data between apps. Both are very different. App extensions also come in handy when using Siri Shortcuts, which is why we discuss them separately.
Safari extensions for iPhone, iPad and Mac
With Safari extensions you can further expand the functionality of a (browser) app. Safari extensions have been around on the Mac for a long time and will also be available on iPhone and iPad from fall 2021. This will often involve ad blockers to stop advertising on websites.
Below you can read our more extensive articles about Safari extensions:
- Use Safari extensions on your iPhone and iPad
- Here’s how to install, manage, and remove Safari extensions on your Mac
- You should give these 8 super useful Safari extensions a try
- This is how you check whether extensions slow down Chrome
App extensions in iOS and iPadOS
There is a completely different form of extensions on the iPhone and iPad, namely app extensions. This was introduced in iOS 8 and allows apps to use data from other apps and communicate with each other without compromising your privacy.
Extensibility allows new applications such as widgets, alternative keyboards and access to apps from other apps. Extensibility is actually a collective name for a number of technologies that developers can use to make their apps more widely accessible and allow apps to communicate with each other.
Before app extensions appeared on the scene, iOS was a fairly closed platform: apps operated in a sandbox, a closed environment where they had no access to other apps. That provided extra security, because apps cannot simply request information from all kinds of other apps.
But it also made iOS inflexible: for example, you were required to use Apple’s standard keyboard. And if you wanted to open a document in another app, you had to do it in a roundabout way. To use the photo editing functions of the Camera+ app, you were required to open the app itself. Thanks to extensions, you no longer have to: you can use the editing functions of your favorite photo app, for example Camera+, from the standard Photos app in iOS.
Thanks to Extensibility, apps still work in a protected environment, a sandbox. But the extensions can now also act as a conduit. For example, you can retrieve passwords that you store in the 1Password app from any app, without having to open the 1Password app. You always keep the initiative yourself. The PayPal app cannot retrieve passwords from 1Password unless you have instructed it yourself.
There are all kinds of extensions (have a look here, for example), which have to do with sharing information, keyboards and notifications, for example. Extensibility is mainly a topic for developers, but as a user you also have to deal with it in daily life. They make the following possible:
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Widgets: Widgets give you information about a particular app at a glance, such as the weather, upcoming appointments, and the like.
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Share information: In almost every app you will find a share menu, with which you can forward information to another app, for example for social media or e-mail. The receiving app only receives the data that you forward, no more.
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Perform actions: Some apps allow you to edit or view content from within another app (e.g. requesting a password from 1Password).
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Edit photos: From Apple’s Photos app, extensions let you edit a photo using third-party apps like Camera+.
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View and edit files: apps can give other apps access to files, for example to edit or display a document.
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Custom keyboard: You can also use third-party keyboards instead of the standard keyboard, but you will have to give the maker certain access.
Benefits of extensions
Everyone knows some extensions, for example the widgets on your home screen and the alternative keyboards. These are also the examples that appeal to people the most.
For most people, the above list will sound very abstract. Yet it’s actually very simple: extensions in iOS make it possible that you are no longer tied to the standard actions that Apple offers. You don’t have to wait for Apple to make a feature widely available in iOS. A developer can build it himself. Any developer can build in an action extension that interacts with other apps or requests information from other apps.
An example: if you are reading a web page in Safari and you come across a page in a foreign language, you open the share function and browse to a translation extension. The entire page is then translated. The translation app only receives the text you want translated and no other information. And because the sharing function is accessible from all apps, you can also use such an extension from other apps.
To prevent you from drowning in all those extensions, only the extensions that are useful in a certain context are shown. If you have selected text, you will not see any extensions related to images.
Extensions in Siri Shortcuts
Extensions also appear in Siri Shortcuts, where they are used to extract data from apps. Thanks to extensions, the privacy of Siri Shortcuts is well taken care of. Apps can make data available to Siri, but they themselves determine which data that is. Moreover, other apps cannot simply consult that data without your prior permission.
