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Cook up IFTTT recipes on your iPad

With version 2.0 of the popular iOS app, iPad users can now create and manage their if/thens. Plus: push notifications!

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
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Rick Broida
2 min read

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IFTTT 2.0 for iOS adds support for iPad and Notification Center. Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

Pardon the double-negative, but nobody doesn't like IFTTT. Well, maybe iPad users, who have had to content themselves with an iPhone-size version of the IFTTT app. But that's over now: IFTTT 2.0 for iOS includes native support for the iPad. And perhaps even better, it offers push notifications as well.

For those unfamiliar with it, IFTTT stands for If This Then That. You use it to create conditional "recipes" that trigger some kind of action. For example, If there's a new story on CNET about iPad apps, Then send yourself that story via email. (Here's that recipe I just made!)

The possibilities are fairly endless, as evidenced by the thousands of existing recipes you can browse and the limitless combinations you can create. Need some inspiration? As Jason Cipriani explained in a recent post, you can even use IFTTT for iOS to motivate you to get to the gym.

Indeed, while IFTTT traditionally relied on a browser for recipe creating, the arrival of the iPhone version last year gave users a slick mobile option. And with version 2.0, iPad users can now leverage their tablets' spacious screens.

Indeed, the updated app makes for much easier recipe browsing and creation. A toggle button switches between Browse and Manage views, the latter listing your recent activity and current recipes. From there a simple tap of the Plus icon walks you through the creation of new ones.

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Now you can build IFTTT recipes that push notifications to your iOS device. Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET

And while scrolling through the available "If" options, you'll see four specific to iOS: Contacts, Location, Photos, and Reminders. So, for example, you can set up a "Selfie" recipe: Any time you snap a photo with your iPad's front camera, it immediately gets emailed to your BFF.

What's more, IFTTT now supports push notifications, meaning you can leverage recipes to, say, alert you (via Notification Center) if there's rain in the forecast for tomorrow. Or find out when a paid app goes free.

All this adds up to one seriously sweet IFTTT experience for iOS. And take heart, Android users: IFTTT for Android is coming soon.