Apple's Workflow adds two Apple Music tie-ins and restores Chrome and Pocket actions, but other actions removed after Apple acquisition are still missing
Federico Viticci / MacStories :
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's March acquisition of Workflow made the automation app free while keeping its three-person team, but by mid-April reporting said there were no further updates planned, leaving users to assume the app was in caretaker mode. This update breaks that pattern: rather than pure neglect, the team shipped two new Apple Music tie-ins and restored Chrome and Pocket actions that had been stripped after the deal.
First-order effects
- Workflow users regain the Chrome and Pocket actions lost in the post-acquisition cleanup, unbreaking existing automations that depended on them.
- The new Apple Music actions give Apple's own service privileged hooks into the app that rival streaming services do not get.
Second-order effects
- Third-party services like Pocket benefit from restored distribution through an automation surface they don't control, while competing services face an asymmetry where Apple Music gets first-party integration.
- The visible sign of life counters the abandonment narrative from April, buying Apple goodwill with the power-user community that championed the app before the acquisition.
Third-order effects
- The selective restoration — first-party additions prioritized, some third-party removals left unreversed — sketches how Apple stewards acquired software: enough maintenance to keep it viable, with integration tilted toward its own services. The eventual destination appears in later coverage of iOS 12, where Workflow's core re-emerges as the Siri Shortcuts app with system-event hooks the standalone version never had.
The trend: Apple's acquisitions of beloved indie utilities are converging on a pattern of quiet maintenance followed by absorption into first-party platforms, with integration favoring Apple's own services along the way.