IFTTT’s Do apps give you an ‘easy button’ for your favorite tasks

class=”cnetReview row” section=””> Josh Miller/CNET IFTTT just gave us a new way to automate our lives. Thursday the company debuted three new apps, Do Button, Do Note and Do Camera, all designed to streamline the common tasks we do on our smartphones each day. Think of all the repetitive actions you do with your phone, such as adding something to your to-do list, checking in with your significant other or uploading photos to Facebook. With IFTTT’s new suite of Do apps, you can program a button to do those things for you, and all you have to do is press it. While none of these tasks is all that time-consuming, they usually require a few steps: opening the app, finding the feature you want and using it. The key with Do is that everything happens in no more than two steps. You program everything up front so your favorite actions are waiting for you anytime you need them.You program the Do apps with formulas called recipes.Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNETHow they work Much like IFTTT , the Do apps work on the formula “if A action happens, then do B action,” such as “If I star an email in Gmail, add it to Evernote.” The difference is that here “action A” is you pressing a button in the apps. That formula is called a recipe in IFTTT’s world, and you use those recipes to program the apps. Recipes can include all sorts of actions, from “Add a new item to my to-do list in Evernote” to “Upload the photo I just took to my vacation folder in Dropbox.” Among the three apps, there are thousands of recipes that you can use immediately, and you can create your own, too. IFTTT created helpful categories to get you started, with recipes for home, work, play and family. Browsing those categories is very helpful if you need ideas on how to use these apps. The last part of the equation, channels, are just the services you likely use every day, including Gmail, Facebook, acupuncture erectile dysfunction points Twitter, Evernote, Fitbit and even home-automation services Phillips Hue, WeMo and SmartThings. You can authorize IFTTT to access your accounts with those services to use them in your recipes.Do Button lets you assign complicated tasks to a single button.Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNETDo Button Each of three Do apps has its own purpose, and IFTTT designed them this way to keep them simple and uncluttered. In the most basic sense, Do Button gives you a single button that you can program with a recipe. Press the button to set off the action and you’re done — IFTTT handles everything for you.