The national uproar over the George Floyd case in the U.S. has been widespread, with Black Lives Matter protests now taking place on a global stage. Arguably, one of the reasons why the individuals responsible for Floyd’s death can now be brought to justice has to do with mobile technology. The video recording documenting the alleged murder has played an important role as evidence, which serves to highlight the importance of mobile video recording.
With that in mind, a Siri shortcut for iPhone users has grown in popularity—first discovered by The Verge—one that gives you an easy way to trigger your phone into recording mode. First released in 2018 by Robert Petersen, the “I’m getting pulled over” shortcut us available to download for free, with Petersen providing regular updates.
Basically, when you say “Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over”, your phone will then execute a few actions. First, it will dim the display of your phone, before pausing any music that might be playing. Your front camera will then start recording automatically, and the video can then be sent to an emergency contact along with your location.
Here’s a quick demonstration:
The shortcut isn’t available on the App Store, but you’ll need to update to iOS 12 first to have access to Siri shortcuts. Once that’s done, you’ll also need the Shortcuts app from the App Store. Then, click on this link with your iPhone on the Safari browser to download the shortcut. Remember to “allow Untrusted Shortcuts” in your Settings, along with location permissions. Meanwhile, Petersen keeps current versions updated on this Reddit thread.
There isn’t a version of this Shortcut for Android users, unfortunately. However, users have experimented with reprogramming the Bixby button on their Samsung devices to work in a similar way. In fact, Samsung’s Quick Commands feature also allows you to create a shortcut directly on your home screen, if that would be a quicker action.
