I Tried Claude’s New App Integrations, With Mixed Results

Claude’s plug-ins for third-party services, called connectors, previously covered business apps like Gmail and Slack. Now it’s adding a whole host of lifestyle apps to its Connectors catalog, including Spotify, Uber, Tripadvisor, Audible, Instacart, Intuit TurboTax and AllTrails.

Other connectors are also in the works, says Anthropic, with the aim of allowing you to do more in the Claude chatbot interface. It’s no different than the ChatGPT app store, which lets you add apps like Photoshop and Apple Music. But do these plug-ins really offer the convenience that Claude claims? And is the experience better than just using the apps themselves?

Find and add connectors in Claude

The Connectors Directory isn’t new, but it now contains many more lifestyle options: head to the Connectors page to browse what’s available, or click the button + (more) in the Claude web interface dialog box and choose Connectors > Add a connector in the context menu.

Each connector listing comes with a description of what the tool does and how it works. Once you add a new connector, you will be returned to the main Claude interface. To use a connector, simply check its name in a prompt: there is no need to select it or even @ it, because Claude will understand what you are referring to.

There are now many more connectors to choose from.
Credit: Lifehacker

The first time you run a new connector, you will be asked to allow the AI ​​to connect to the application, using your login credentials. It works the same way as most other plugins: you get a list of permissions Claude will have in the app you’re connecting to, and you can then confirm or deny the connection.

To manage the connectors and the permissions that Claude has inside them, click on the icon + (more) in the prompt box, and then choose Connectors > Manage connectors. With Spotify, for example, there are separate permissions for accessing details of what you’re currently listening to, searching the Spotify library, and creating playlists. You can enable or disable each of these permissions separately.

Spotify was the first connector I tried, as it corresponds to a similar connector in ChatGPT. I asked what Radiohead’s most popular song was on Spotify, which I got wrong, and then asked for a playlist of “hidden gems” and “lesser known tracks” for REM – which brought out tracks as deep as “Shiny Happy People” and “Man on the Moon” (two of the band’s biggest hits).

Credit: Lifehacker

It’s not the best debut, but other playlist prompts — for chill jazz, for instrumental post-rock, for ’90s one-hit wonders — worked better. I can imagine playing around with some of these playlist options when I don’t really know the artists I’m interested in and I’m not too concerned with the details.

However, you can’t play playlists in Claude: you need to go to Spotify to hear anything longer than a preview. And given that there are already plenty of ways to get AI-powered playlists (including within Spotify itself), I’m not sure this Claude plugin really adds much, even if AI can be trusted to organize the music (which is still debatable).

You can use Claude to help you find Ubers, hotels, and hiking trails.

I experimented with several other new connectors in Claude. When it comes to Uber, you can view the current price of a ride, so you’ll see an approximate arrival time, how much the ride will cost you, and the travel options available. It’s useful, to a point, but it’s not much more convenient than just checking the app – and Claude still leaves the searching and booking to the dedicated Uber app.

The Wyndham Hotels and Resorts connector showed promise, not only showing results for hotels in a given location, but also allowing me to compare prices, user reviews, and features: a pool, gym, free parking, and anything else you might be looking for. It’s this kind of research and synthesis that Claude can be very good at with AI.

Claude asks permission before connecting to applications.
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From what I could see from cross-referencing references on the web, Claude made no mistakes in evaluating the differences between my hotel choices, but I’m still not sure I’m ready to hand over my trip planning entirely to AI just yet.

AllTrails is another connector I looked at, asking for a variety of weekend hiking options in my area. I was able to easily search for walks based on duration, user rating, and difficulty, and Claude helped me narrow down the different options I had and what each entailed. As with the other connectors here, I got nicely formatted embedded previews in Claude itself.

Again, though, it’s not that different from just using the dedicated AllTrails app from the start. Claude’s AI adds the sparkle of a conversational interface, making searching and comparing a little simpler, but it’s really just about joining dots that already exist.

The integrations are well done, but are only real overviews.
Credit: Lifehacker

Asking Claude to scour your Gmail for meeting times and present the results in Slack is one thing (and something you could already do with business-focused connectors), but giving you limited access to Spotify’s tools for creating playlists is another. At the moment, these lifestyle extensions seem a little half-baked.

I also had this feeling with the Tripadvisor plugin, when I tried to search for reviews of a local attraction inside Claude. The AI ​​displayed a widget with details about the wrong location, told me it couldn’t find a specific match in the Tripadvisor database, and advised me to check the Tripadvisor app directly, which I will do from now on.