IFTTT

IFTTT, short for “If This Then That”, is a great web service for automating tasks between internet services. It’s been a while since it has started and now it’s on Android (and iPhone too).

Most Android users would have heard about Tasker, an app which runs specific tasks based on the context. IFTTT is like Tasker, but for the web.

There’s a lot you can do with the service, most obvious ones are: changing your Twitter picture automatically as your Facebook picture is changed, getting a notification if it’s raining tomorrow, backing up your phone’s contacts to Google spreadsheets etc.

Now that IFTTT is available on Android, you can be even more creative. There are five new channels introduced: Android Device, Location, Phone call, Photos, SMS.

So if you’ve misplaced your phone which is on silent mode, you can increase the ringtone volume by sending an E-mail. This is possible because IFTTT now has permissions to control your Android device.

To get started, check out the most popular recipes in their site.

To enable the Android channels, you have to first install the app on your device. Get it from the link below.

Link: IFTTT for Android

As Twitter has rolled out photo filters for its mobile apps, Instagram has switched off the Twitter cards support for its users. Twitter cards essentially are more like expanded tweets which show a preview of content, which you can view without leaving the site.

If you’re one of those who love/use this feature, then good news! Here’s a simple tip on how you can cross post your Instagram photos on to Twitter and letting your followers see them as Twitter images (which falls under pic.twitter.com).

IFTTT (If this then that), which we have talked about earlier links services, so you can setup an action to happen if something gets triggered.

Setting up IFTTT for cross posting Instagram photos on Twitter

Sign up for IFTTT, if you haven’t already.
Go to channels tab, and activate both Twitter as well as Instagram channels. Activating generally means logging into those services or giving your username.
After that’s done, go to this recipe page and hit ‘use recipe’ at the end of page.
That’s all, the recipe is activated and now when ever you upload a photo on to Instagram with #twitter as tag, it automatically gets uploaded to Twitter and your followers can view it without leaving the site.

Along with the image, the caption you have put for the Instagram photo will also be tweeted. Note that there can be a delay in IFTTT uploading the image to Twitter, as it’s not real-time.

Try it out and tell us what you think.