PSA: An iOS 18 bug is why our favorite ‘Apple Frames’ shortcut broke

1 day ago 3

Do you ever frame screenshots inside Apple device frames? Then you’ve probably used Federico Viticci’s ‘Apple Frames’ shortcut. Unfortunately, the shortcut has been broken in recent months, and now we know that an iOS 18 bug is the cause.

Shortcuts bug impacting PNGs still unresolved in iOS 18.2

In a new thread on Bluesky, Federico Viticci of MacStories has detailed the problems Apple Frames has had since iOS 18 arrived.

So the reason I’ve been unable to update my Apple Frames shortcut for the latest devices is a bug in iOS/iPadOS 18’s Shortcuts app that hasn’t been fixed yet.

For the past few months, the Overlay Image action has always removed the alpha transparency of a PNG.

I have no idea how to work around it.

Viticci filed feedback with Apple to try to get this fixed, but as of the latest iOS 18.2 beta it still hasn’t been addressed by Apple.

He also notes that several Reddit threads exist where users of other shortcuts are having the same issue with PNGs.

Unfortunately it’s not uncommon for new iOS updates to introduce bugs into the Shortcuts app. However, the continued presence of this bug months after the iOS 18 beta arrived, and the lack of any available workaround for shortcuts, makes this an especially problematic case.

Have you encountered the Apple Frames bug or other issues in the Shortcuts app lately? Let us know in the comments.