QuickSpend is finally actually quick

"It's done. It's over." — Frodo, The Lord of the Rings.

The problem: a "quick" app that was still not quick enough#

QuickSpend was built to make expense logging fast. But even a fast app still had one annoying step: you had to open it.

At the end of the month, sparse data makes every chart useless. The issue was not the form. The issue was the moment before the form. I wanted a flow where the user could say "quick expense 50k milk tea" and be done without tapping anything.

The Shortcut path#

The reliable flow became:

1. Siri triggers a bundled Shortcut.
2. The Shortcut asks for the expense text.
3. The user says a natural sentence.
4. QuickSpend parses the text.
5. If confidence is high, the transaction is saved immediately.

It is not as magical as a perfect one-shot Siri intent, but it is reliable enough to ship.

The App Intent path#

The prettier version is: "Hey Siri, use QuickSpend to add 50k milk tea."

That path is still flaky. Apple's App Intents API has constraints around free-form string parameters in shortcut phrases, so Siri often has to ask for the expense text after triggering the intent. The Shortcut path exists because it is the path I can trust.

What shipped#

• App Intent — exposes the add-expense action to Siri and Shortcuts.
• Bundled Shortcut — creates a smoother voice-first path.
• AI parser reuse — voice input goes through the same parser as manual input.
• No app launch on the happy path — Siri can read the result and finish.

Lesson#

Speed is not only about app performance. Sometimes the fastest UI is no UI at all.