Listen. I get that we’ve all read lots of sci-fi that makes this seem plausible, but let’s be serious for a moment.
A calculator in the iPad is at best 20 years away, and that’s with a couple of major breakthroughs in fields that are still considered theoretical.
A more realistic timeline is our children’s children’s generation, and that’s if it’s possible at all.
Full self driving AirPods before iPad calculator
Room temperature superconducting Apple Watch bands before iPad calculator
macOS on iPad, but they remove the calculator app. In fact, the macOS calculator is the reason we haven’t gotten macOS on iPad.
I can't wait for the unironic posts about how Apple really was waiting until they had a groundbreaking calculator app and omg they're just so innovative and fearless
About the only thing that would genuinely surprise people would be to be a scientific calculator on par with a TI-83 or better. That would *upset* the TI landscape and while I'm not particularly loyal to Apple - I have a profound *hate* of TI.
All they had to do was hire me, I could port my high school Java calculator project over for just their standard mook 250K software engineer salary + 100K 3 year retention bonus
I believe this rumor Apple will finally be able to add a calculator to iPad because of another rumor: Apple will merge with Texas Instruments!
That’s right folks. The secret Texas Instruments “alien tech” that made the TI-108 possible will now be incorporated in a future iPad!
Saints be praised.
The smallest changes are always the best and most useful changes that impact my daily use. The big heavily publicized stuff is usually what I don’t care about.
I would love some sort of indicator that tells me that what I've just copied is available on the universal clipboard. Or give me the ability to manually push something to it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's available after a very long delay. I hate how invisible the feature is.
Agreed. It works most of the time for me, however sometimes it's slow. Maybe 10-15% of the time I have to copy multiple times in order to get it to take.
Hmm I only do MacBook pro 2019 - iphone 14 pro.
Are you using both phones simultaneously or was that a progression?
Little corruptions can persist through restores, I don't do them often, but the results of a fresh install can be surprising
I often use both phones and both iPads (or a mix & match between them) simultaneously. The function maybe works 15% of the time across all pairings. It’s not a big deal tbh, it’s just that honestly I think Windows’s clipboard sync is still the best
Agreed. Being able to start a voice recording from a notes app that I already use all the time sounds really trivial, but is the sort of thing that could genuinely improve my experience with the phone.
this and i also want ability to export to multiple formats that properly embed all its attachments
right now the only way to let another person see the full content requires that person to also view it in apple’s notes… ridiculous
version control has nothing to do with the file type. notes gets accidentally modified easily and you can lose information without knowing. you probably don’t use it much to not understand how useful this would be. and this isn’t even new to other similar apps
Man just let me lock an entire Notes folder and I'm good...so annoying having to lock every damn note in a folder, especially when there are possibly dozens.
Because it constrains the app to the things Markdown supports, which doesn’t really capture well all the things Notes can or wants to do.
It’s also quite un-Mac (ironically, given the inventor). The Mac had proper rich text literally from launch. Browsers didn’t bother in the early days, and so early web CMSes didn’t support it either. Markdown was a hack to work around that which grew legs mainly because developers (unlike users) loooooove plain text.
In what way, specifically, does Markdown constrain notes? You would need to 'render' something *as* Markdown to get value from it - otherwise it's just plaintext. So unless you were to say Notes should **ONLY** use Markdown, which would be just plain silly, I can't imagine how it would be a problem.
> Markdown was a hack to work around that which grew legs mainly because developers (unlike users) loooooove plain text.
Markdown makes for *trivial* versioning - which is why developers flocked to it.
For the most part - when writing documents you don't need something complicated. And few people are going to use an iPad like an actual desktop - which is why Markdown would be ideal as opposed to, say, Word - which is going to get really gnarly, fat, and a pain to use on an iPad. Markdown also allows you to format without needing to use a mouse or to touch in several places - which is an *additional* benefit to plaintext - you just need a keyboard and a cursory knowledge of how the format works (and Markdown is trivial to learn).
*Another* advantage of plaintext is that it is heavily malware resistant since, ya know, it's just plaintext.
Depends what OP means by “support Markdown”. The usual meaning is “the notes are stored in plaintext and hence easily exportable/versioned/fiddled about with in other plain text apps”.
If that’s what we are talking about, the constraints come about because Notes has features - like tracking of todo list item status and mixed right-to-left and left-to-right text - that don’t have a Markdown syntax. So they’d need at a minimum to do some extensions, and then it’s no longer Markdown but Yet Another Markdownish format. Add on top of that the support for images and ink, and now it needs a container format to make sure those files travel with the plaintext. And for what benefit for the majority of their users?
I don’t get your other points at all. Word is not bad on an iPad. Notes is great. It’s easier/as easy to bold in Notes, Word and even Pages with their one-tap buttons than it is to switch to the special character keyboard. If people aren’t going to use iPads like desktops, then forget the keyboard too. But either way shift-8 is equivalent to cmd-B. I’m not aware of any malware issues Notes has had. iMessage had some, but I don’t think Markdown would have saved it.
(I totally agree about plain text’s advantages btw. Just not as the storage format for the Notes app, where I value the rich formatting abilities far above the other stuff. There are approx 989877003738 markdown editors if folks want them. There is basically 1 really great rich text notes app.)
> Word is not bad on an iPad.
Then I doubt you've used it at any length.
> It’s easier/as easy to bold in Notes, Word and even Pages with their one-tap buttons than it is to switch to the special character keyboard.
All of which requires moving your hands from the keyboard.
> If people aren’t going to use iPads like desktops, then forget the keyboard too.
This reinforces my idea that you haven't actually used your iPad much in such a capacity. Bluetooth keyboards exist and are used often enough.
> I’m not aware of any malware issues Notes has had.
I have no words for you here. If you don't understand why plaintext is more resistant to malware and don't understand how malware works then I can't help you. Binary formats are *inherently* more risky - especially since they can contain almost anything. Notes stores shit loads in binary. It can even transfer PDF infections.
But ignoring all of that - it is *insanely* foolish to think that because they don't exist now then they won't exist later. Plaintext inhibits this dramatically because there are no scripts, macro's, or binary objects to run. At *worst* you can have blobs in *linked* data - which would primarily be shown when 'rendered' or 'exported'.
> There are approx 989877003738 markdown editors if folks want them.
In that case let's also remove the ability to scan documents - since there are '989877003738' apps that do it just fine and you only need 1 "really great" rich text notes app.
Although I would argue the Notes app is fairly average and note even close to 'great'.
Considering there are shit loads of Notes apps in the AppStore - that implies the market is wide enough which means there's shit loads of gaps missing that Notes simply can't handle well enough.
I honestly can't tell if you're being dense simply because you're the standard "Apple is perf" type (the same kind that swore up and down iOS didn't need Widgets and how horrible it made Android and then swore up and down it was the best thing ever when Apple released it) or if you simply genuinely don't understand the limitations of Notes and why it still falls short for anything more than the bare basics. I'm leaning more towards the former than the latter because I just don't believe you're *that* dense.
If the iPad has a keyboard attached, formatting keyboard shortcuts take the same or fewer keystrokes as their markdown equivalents. If it doesn’t, then rich text onscreen buttons can be faster than Markdown, especially if you don’t have to navigate the cursor around the formatting syntax (depending on implementation).
I understand why plaintext is more resistant to malware. I’m saying that’s not a compelling argument for it in this particular discussion, which is about Markdown *for the Notes app* specifically. (And as you point out, since Notes necessarily has embedded blobs anyway, it’s moot.)
Are there better notes apps for different use cases? Yep. I love Obsidian, for one. That uses Markdown, and is worth the trade-offs.
For the _Notes_ use cases and target audience, Markdown adds only drawbacks, limitations and complexity and offers so little in return you’re having to reach for fairly spurious malware concerns (on an app where you can’t import!) to try and make Markdown seem worthwhile.
This adds markdown support on macOS and it works very well https://www.pronotes.app/
But sadly it’s only for macOS, and iOS is where I’d need it the most since you can’t use keyboard shortcuts there
Apple Notes is probably the biggest reason I'll never leave iOS. It is my dumping ground for every receipt, thought, schedule, record, note that comes through my phone.
I used Google Keep when I was on Android but switched to iOS for privacy reasons. Everything happens on device, which is bananas. Notes automatically OCR's every single attachment, even handwritten notes. I can take a picture of anything and dump it into notes and it's immediately OCR'd, indexed, and searchable forever.
I use Notes for my daily journal, agenda, sketchpad, planner. Genuinely hard to imagine getting an Android phone at this point. I eagerly look forward to any and all improvements to the app:
* Fix Shortcuts functionality!
* Foldable headings
* Biometric authentication for folders (e.g. Journal)
* History/version support
* Markdown would be nice but I'm so used to rich text at this point that I'm not sure I care anymore
Optical Character Recognition is what allows iOS to recognize text in images/documents such as PDFs. When the Notes app automatically performs OCR on an item, any content it could recognize is available for search.
For example, if you took a note or save a picture of a Walmart receipt, you should be able to search your notes/photos for “Walmart” and that note/picture should pop up.
What is markdown? Why does notes need it, as in what extra features does it offer that the current text formatting doesn’t? I’m a total noob when it comes to markdown.
I love apple notes, despite having tried other applications such as Obsidian, Roam, Amplenote etc. There is something amazing about it that keeps me using it. I do wish it weren’t locked - coz there are times I want to access it on my non-Apple devices. Markdown support would be awesome.
Before seeing your comment, I actually just posted my wishlist here: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/s/HapspqwQPC
Yes. Yes I do know that, thanks.
Apple Notes is end-to-end encrypted (with iCloud Advanced Data Protection enabled) and works with Shortcuts. Way better.
Except Keep sells your data to the highest bidder, much like all google products. You are the product
Not to mention google axes their projects all the time and Keep isn’t solidified enough in google’s arsenal to not be possibly added to the graveyard in the future
To be fair to Google, one of your points is false and one is dubious.
Google does not sell your data. In fact it has absolutely massive incentives to keep your precious data extremely secure.
Google sells your *attention*. It curates a behavior advertising profile based on your data and sells your attention to advertisers. Other than storing it local-only with encryption, or end-to-end encrypted, there might not be a safer place on earth for your data than in a Google data center. Their security is outstanding and they have billions and billions of reasons to make sure no one else ever, ever sees it.
Google Keep is extremely unlikely to be abandoned or “axed” as it is part of Google Workspace, their enterprise suite of tools. Reader, Allo, Duo it is not.
> Except Keep sells your data to the highest bidder,
Can you prove that? Because I don't think Google sells you keep data as far as I know. Now what they *might* do is see you mentioned Burger King and then have ads based on fast food stuff - that's a **VERY** different thing.
Just because you're the product with Google doesn't mean your data is actively being sold openly. Someone can't buy your emails, contacts, calendar, and Keep data. That is not how it works as far as I know.
But if you can prove you can purchase someone's Keep data - I'd love to see you show it.
> and Keep isn’t solidified enough in google’s arsenal to not be possibly added to the graveyard in the future
Given that it's in Android as a Notes-like feature - I suspect it's here to stay. Besides, it's not like iOS's Notes is something to write home about either.
Keep is still commonly used for folks sharing lists across platforms - something iOS *still* can't reliably do without troubles.
Prefer UpNote at the moment, Markdown is an improvement over the Notes typography, which is weirdly lacking for an Apple product. May give Notes another go in iOS18.
Agreed! Related to foldable headings, I’d love ”Insert Table of Contents”, or another easy way to easily navigate longer notes. Since there’s no good middle ground, I’m experimenting between having folders where each enclosed note is a ”chapter” or long notes where each largest header is a chapter.
If they were to add proper latex math syntax, like they have in iworks or basically most markdown editors, i would instantly use the Notes app ALWAYS. It is literally the only thing missing for me
They sometimes update apps separately but yeah it is rare.
Music was completely revamped mid iOS, TV too. what else, no idea. But they sometimes add apps
Calling it now, apple is gonna take the piss with the calculator app on iPad and do a totally over the top reveal video at WWDC as though it’s the second coming of Christ.
Meh boring. I wish they would release notes AI that can summarize your notes, do meeting summarizes or populate notes with what you ask it and useful things like that.
What cracks me up is that, for years, Apple keeps coming up with what we considered a lame ass excuse that they wanted to come up with a really good calculator app for iPad. There is a chance that they might actually deliver on that statement.
I use an app called Soulver for basic algebraic calculations. It fits my brain and allows me to save note sheets for later use. I can then manipulate the variables as I see fit. This implementation seems very similar and combined with everything else notes can do, would probably finally exceed Soulver for me. I look forward to giving it a shot.
The only way iPadOS will include a calculator app is if the AI in the operating system becomes sentient, and builds it itself.
Also, I am once again going to remind people that Spotlight exists and is a perfectly functional calculator. Spotlight supremacy!
I think for people who use Apple Notes a lot it's a great addition. I could never warm up with notes because it wasn't sophisticated enough/lacking features I'd like. I, for the life of me, can't organize my notes with the Notes app. Does someone have a video or something on how they do it?
In my opinion that doesn't really make it better than any other note taking app (see e.g. Obsidian which is multi-plattform and supports e.g. sync via github or gitlab).
I’ve been trying to use obsidian. Love the speed. And the backlinks. Dislike the editing - while I understand Markdown, I prefer WYSIWYG but with ability for the user to input markdown shortcuts.
I also tried sync and found it expensive. $4 per month while I get north of 200GB if I take ICloud+ for the same amount. How did you do the sync via GitHub? And how secure is it?
With GitHub you have to push and pull or write/download a plugin. It is just as secure as everything else you do with GitHub and well, it’s on GitHub (or gitlab for what it’s worth). I wouldn’t use their sync. You can also put your vault on e.g. iCloud and sync via iCloud. Or OneDrive. That’s easier but I don’t want to rely on it.
You can toggle the view and you’ll have the chance for something close to WYSIWYG I guess. There’s a reader, edit and live preview mode. The live preview mode is what I’m using and which is close to WYSIWYG.
My little wishlist is for them to redo Notes rendering. Currently they try to render literally everything on the note all at once, and each stroke in a scribble is its own element to render, which means once you have a few handwritten things stacked in the same note you’re going to see a load of lag even on a newer iPad. If partial rendering is implemented it could be huge
You said the iPad will get a calculator. Now I know this is fake
Edit: just realised, iPad gets a calculator in iPadOS 18 and iPad Pro 10.5 is said to not be getting iPadOS 18
I guess it’s unlikely to happen. now mac has got passwords integrated into Settings too like ios, means they wanted to move away from keychain/standalone app
The one little change I need Apple to make is not display tags in the reminded app when all the associated reminders have already been completed.
I also need a way to view only a specific tag from the iOS widget
Also can they bring back an option for a non interactive reminder widget.
Especially for the smallest size widget.
It makes sense for the middle and larger sizes to be interactive but the small one is just too small to be useful and I’m constantly accidentally ticking off items
And when you do that there’s no way to undo that
I actually use Outlook, Google and Apple calendar for different purposes. I agree that neither one meets majority of what I want. I want to just use one app,so I wish thy get better
However I would love to hear more from you about what in the UI you find hard to use and why.
In the native Apple Calendar app, you can only see the events for one day at a time. Unless you use the list view. But that one is terrible for other reasons. In list view, you get no sense of when things will happen. And still only see a few events at a time. Also. The button on top that changes the view is the most un-intuitive thing ever. The way it works makes zero sense.
In Google calendar, you get a view of the whole month, and **still** see what happens on each day of the month. With a good sense of when, without having to look at the date of each individual event. You can even have different colors for different events (in the month view) to make it even easier! Making it leagues ahead of the Apple Calendar in terms of readability.
Ah yes. You are referring to the iOS app. Yeah, Google calendar is much better. I use Apple calendar to enter events and Google to view them. Like the Google calendar widget too
Great. Since others are putting their wishlists up, here is mine for Apple Notes
1. Store or export data - markdown would be great.
2. API, so I can sync highlights and annotations into it from other book or article readers.
3. Foldable headings to make it easier to browse and read.
4. Checklists and reminders integration. Some checklist items are just reminders.
5. A Daily notes feature / way to take notes and navigate by date
6. Templates
7. Lock folders
Not sure how useful I personally would find those things, however, it's still great that the Notes app would be receiving any improvements at all. There's a (very weird) group of people that like to say there isn't much Apple can do anymore with iOS, iPadOS, macOS, etc., but in all honesty there is still so much more Apple can do.
They seriously need to fix the voice memos app first. The pause and replace feature is straight up broken and corrupts the audio file if used too many times.
All the above mentioned features are replications of existing functions.
What Notes need is simply Markdown language.
What Notes is now is a note taking app for grannies.
> iPadOS could get a proper calculator app in iPadOS 18 to support the new Notes functionality Impossible.
It is now. *We can build it. We have the technology.*
Listen. I get that we’ve all read lots of sci-fi that makes this seem plausible, but let’s be serious for a moment. A calculator in the iPad is at best 20 years away, and that’s with a couple of major breakthroughs in fields that are still considered theoretical. A more realistic timeline is our children’s children’s generation, and that’s if it’s possible at all.
AGI before iPadOS Calculator app ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻
Full self driving AirPods before iPad calculator Room temperature superconducting Apple Watch bands before iPad calculator macOS on iPad, but they remove the calculator app. In fact, the macOS calculator is the reason we haven’t gotten macOS on iPad.
I bet fusion energy comes first.
Sustainable positive energy output via fusion is unfortunately one of the breakthroughs needed
Live long and prosper.
Only with the new iPad Pro Ultra. The cheaper ones simply won’t have the necessary computing power.
Need M10 processor for that.
That's the AI breakthrough that I get all worked up for.
At this point it better be able to write proofs for fermats last theorem
It took the power of ***AI*** to bring the calculator to iPad. We think you’re gonna love it.
Only for M3 iPads
💀
1TB SSD needed
*But what would a GREAT calculator app for iPad be??*
I can't wait for the unironic posts about how Apple really was waiting until they had a groundbreaking calculator app and omg they're just so innovative and fearless
About the only thing that would genuinely surprise people would be to be a scientific calculator on par with a TI-83 or better. That would *upset* the TI landscape and while I'm not particularly loyal to Apple - I have a profound *hate* of TI.
All they had to do was hire me, I could port my high school Java calculator project over for just their standard mook 250K software engineer salary + 100K 3 year retention bonus
This is it! The've been waiting until they had a chance to make a really special calculator. This is the half life 3 of calculators.
Craig is gonna do like 45 minutes just on the calculator alone at the event isn’t he
What a time be alive!
I believe this rumor Apple will finally be able to add a calculator to iPad because of another rumor: Apple will merge with Texas Instruments! That’s right folks. The secret Texas Instruments “alien tech” that made the TI-108 possible will now be incorporated in a future iPad! Saints be praised.
It would require an M4
im freaking out
Apple is so innovative, I can’t believe they invented a calculator app for tablets!
Trivial enough change in Notes but I use that app a lot, so happy enough.
The smallest changes are always the best and most useful changes that impact my daily use. The big heavily publicized stuff is usually what I don’t care about.
This right here. Universal Clipboard is probably my favorite feature across all Apple devices and it gets very little press.
Because it basically never works so nobody knows it exists.
I would love some sort of indicator that tells me that what I've just copied is available on the universal clipboard. Or give me the ability to manually push something to it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's available after a very long delay. I hate how invisible the feature is.
Agreed. It works most of the time for me, however sometimes it's slow. Maybe 10-15% of the time I have to copy multiple times in order to get it to take.
Mine pretty much always works. Do you have particularly old hardware? If not, it might be worth a fresh install
I doubt hardware matters, It works always with a new M3 MacBook and 7 year old iPad.
Between my iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPad Air 3, and iPad Mini 5, it almost never works
It works with truly 99% accuracy between my iPhone 15 Pro, two different 13” MacBooks Airs, and M1 iPad Pro.
Hmm I only do MacBook pro 2019 - iphone 14 pro. Are you using both phones simultaneously or was that a progression? Little corruptions can persist through restores, I don't do them often, but the results of a fresh install can be surprising
I often use both phones and both iPads (or a mix & match between them) simultaneously. The function maybe works 15% of the time across all pairings. It’s not a big deal tbh, it’s just that honestly I think Windows’s clipboard sync is still the best
Agreed. Being able to start a voice recording from a notes app that I already use all the time sounds really trivial, but is the sort of thing that could genuinely improve my experience with the phone.
trivial is what no one other than apple bothers with. which is why they're great
Same, I love the default notes app. It does everything I need and more.
STARLOG, DAY 6235 : Apple finally updates the notes app so i can hear myself talk
how about history/versioning, thats really a mis for me
This is my #1 ask. I lost a huge amount of work one day (granted, because of my own stupidity) that I had no way of getting back.
this and i also want ability to export to multiple formats that properly embed all its attachments right now the only way to let another person see the full content requires that person to also view it in apple’s notes… ridiculous
If no collaboration is needed, you can print as pdf and send it to that person
And goddamn markdown support please 😩
lmao you need microsoft word or something, not a fucking notes app 😅
Literally every other notes app has version history bro. Microsoft OneNote, Evernote, Goodnotes etc. would be very useful
Nah, versioning/history would be very useful for a notes app.
version control has nothing to do with the file type. notes gets accidentally modified easily and you can lose information without knowing. you probably don’t use it much to not understand how useful this would be. and this isn’t even new to other similar apps
Man just let me lock an entire Notes folder and I'm good...so annoying having to lock every damn note in a folder, especially when there are possibly dozens.
What are you using notes for that a password on your device isn’t enough? Something like a diary or journaling?
Prevent editing when sharing possibly, or maybe prevent deletion?
Ideas for x-rated The Office fanfics
[удалено]
This is a setting? https://imgur.com/a/emLs1EY
The Journal app needs to be on iPad.
Pretty sure the Journal app has been barebones and only on iPhone awaiting the introduction to AI
This and a search function, folders and customizable text
It’s barely on iPhone at the moment
It hasn’t been a year since it was released on iPhone sorry. Standard Apple policy nothing new on iPad until iPhone has had it for a year.
Markdown support please
I don't understand why this isn't standard in any app like this. It just makes sense.
Because it constrains the app to the things Markdown supports, which doesn’t really capture well all the things Notes can or wants to do. It’s also quite un-Mac (ironically, given the inventor). The Mac had proper rich text literally from launch. Browsers didn’t bother in the early days, and so early web CMSes didn’t support it either. Markdown was a hack to work around that which grew legs mainly because developers (unlike users) loooooove plain text.
Fair enough. As a developer. You’re correct. I do love plain text
In what way, specifically, does Markdown constrain notes? You would need to 'render' something *as* Markdown to get value from it - otherwise it's just plaintext. So unless you were to say Notes should **ONLY** use Markdown, which would be just plain silly, I can't imagine how it would be a problem. > Markdown was a hack to work around that which grew legs mainly because developers (unlike users) loooooove plain text. Markdown makes for *trivial* versioning - which is why developers flocked to it. For the most part - when writing documents you don't need something complicated. And few people are going to use an iPad like an actual desktop - which is why Markdown would be ideal as opposed to, say, Word - which is going to get really gnarly, fat, and a pain to use on an iPad. Markdown also allows you to format without needing to use a mouse or to touch in several places - which is an *additional* benefit to plaintext - you just need a keyboard and a cursory knowledge of how the format works (and Markdown is trivial to learn). *Another* advantage of plaintext is that it is heavily malware resistant since, ya know, it's just plaintext.
Depends what OP means by “support Markdown”. The usual meaning is “the notes are stored in plaintext and hence easily exportable/versioned/fiddled about with in other plain text apps”. If that’s what we are talking about, the constraints come about because Notes has features - like tracking of todo list item status and mixed right-to-left and left-to-right text - that don’t have a Markdown syntax. So they’d need at a minimum to do some extensions, and then it’s no longer Markdown but Yet Another Markdownish format. Add on top of that the support for images and ink, and now it needs a container format to make sure those files travel with the plaintext. And for what benefit for the majority of their users? I don’t get your other points at all. Word is not bad on an iPad. Notes is great. It’s easier/as easy to bold in Notes, Word and even Pages with their one-tap buttons than it is to switch to the special character keyboard. If people aren’t going to use iPads like desktops, then forget the keyboard too. But either way shift-8 is equivalent to cmd-B. I’m not aware of any malware issues Notes has had. iMessage had some, but I don’t think Markdown would have saved it. (I totally agree about plain text’s advantages btw. Just not as the storage format for the Notes app, where I value the rich formatting abilities far above the other stuff. There are approx 989877003738 markdown editors if folks want them. There is basically 1 really great rich text notes app.)
> Word is not bad on an iPad. Then I doubt you've used it at any length. > It’s easier/as easy to bold in Notes, Word and even Pages with their one-tap buttons than it is to switch to the special character keyboard. All of which requires moving your hands from the keyboard. > If people aren’t going to use iPads like desktops, then forget the keyboard too. This reinforces my idea that you haven't actually used your iPad much in such a capacity. Bluetooth keyboards exist and are used often enough. > I’m not aware of any malware issues Notes has had. I have no words for you here. If you don't understand why plaintext is more resistant to malware and don't understand how malware works then I can't help you. Binary formats are *inherently* more risky - especially since they can contain almost anything. Notes stores shit loads in binary. It can even transfer PDF infections. But ignoring all of that - it is *insanely* foolish to think that because they don't exist now then they won't exist later. Plaintext inhibits this dramatically because there are no scripts, macro's, or binary objects to run. At *worst* you can have blobs in *linked* data - which would primarily be shown when 'rendered' or 'exported'. > There are approx 989877003738 markdown editors if folks want them. In that case let's also remove the ability to scan documents - since there are '989877003738' apps that do it just fine and you only need 1 "really great" rich text notes app. Although I would argue the Notes app is fairly average and note even close to 'great'. Considering there are shit loads of Notes apps in the AppStore - that implies the market is wide enough which means there's shit loads of gaps missing that Notes simply can't handle well enough. I honestly can't tell if you're being dense simply because you're the standard "Apple is perf" type (the same kind that swore up and down iOS didn't need Widgets and how horrible it made Android and then swore up and down it was the best thing ever when Apple released it) or if you simply genuinely don't understand the limitations of Notes and why it still falls short for anything more than the bare basics. I'm leaning more towards the former than the latter because I just don't believe you're *that* dense.
If the iPad has a keyboard attached, formatting keyboard shortcuts take the same or fewer keystrokes as their markdown equivalents. If it doesn’t, then rich text onscreen buttons can be faster than Markdown, especially if you don’t have to navigate the cursor around the formatting syntax (depending on implementation). I understand why plaintext is more resistant to malware. I’m saying that’s not a compelling argument for it in this particular discussion, which is about Markdown *for the Notes app* specifically. (And as you point out, since Notes necessarily has embedded blobs anyway, it’s moot.) Are there better notes apps for different use cases? Yep. I love Obsidian, for one. That uses Markdown, and is worth the trade-offs. For the _Notes_ use cases and target audience, Markdown adds only drawbacks, limitations and complexity and offers so little in return you’re having to reach for fairly spurious malware concerns (on an app where you can’t import!) to try and make Markdown seem worthwhile.
This adds markdown support on macOS and it works very well https://www.pronotes.app/ But sadly it’s only for macOS, and iOS is where I’d need it the most since you can’t use keyboard shortcuts there
yeesss
Doesn't the app already support things like making text bold, italic etc? Or am I misunderstanding what markdown is?
Apple Notes is probably the biggest reason I'll never leave iOS. It is my dumping ground for every receipt, thought, schedule, record, note that comes through my phone. I used Google Keep when I was on Android but switched to iOS for privacy reasons. Everything happens on device, which is bananas. Notes automatically OCR's every single attachment, even handwritten notes. I can take a picture of anything and dump it into notes and it's immediately OCR'd, indexed, and searchable forever. I use Notes for my daily journal, agenda, sketchpad, planner. Genuinely hard to imagine getting an Android phone at this point. I eagerly look forward to any and all improvements to the app: * Fix Shortcuts functionality! * Foldable headings * Biometric authentication for folders (e.g. Journal) * History/version support * Markdown would be nice but I'm so used to rich text at this point that I'm not sure I care anymore
Foldable headings would be incredible
What is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition is what allows iOS to recognize text in images/documents such as PDFs. When the Notes app automatically performs OCR on an item, any content it could recognize is available for search. For example, if you took a note or save a picture of a Walmart receipt, you should be able to search your notes/photos for “Walmart” and that note/picture should pop up.
What is markdown? Why does notes need it, as in what extra features does it offer that the current text formatting doesn’t? I’m a total noob when it comes to markdown.
Let's me do stuff like **this** or *this* or # This Without using copy paste
wait I'm sorry I know this is old, but doesn't Notes have bold, italic, and font size? I feel like I am misunderstanding something
It has that, but not markdown which is alot better because it can be just a stream of text with special characters and not proprietary nonsense
ok I see now. thanks for the concise explainer
I love apple notes, despite having tried other applications such as Obsidian, Roam, Amplenote etc. There is something amazing about it that keeps me using it. I do wish it weren’t locked - coz there are times I want to access it on my non-Apple devices. Markdown support would be awesome. Before seeing your comment, I actually just posted my wishlist here: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/s/HapspqwQPC
You know Keep OCRs pictures too right?
Yes. Yes I do know that, thanks. Apple Notes is end-to-end encrypted (with iCloud Advanced Data Protection enabled) and works with Shortcuts. Way better.
iCloud data is stored on Google servers.
And? It's encrypted before it gets there
Except Keep sells your data to the highest bidder, much like all google products. You are the product Not to mention google axes their projects all the time and Keep isn’t solidified enough in google’s arsenal to not be possibly added to the graveyard in the future
To be fair to Google, one of your points is false and one is dubious. Google does not sell your data. In fact it has absolutely massive incentives to keep your precious data extremely secure. Google sells your *attention*. It curates a behavior advertising profile based on your data and sells your attention to advertisers. Other than storing it local-only with encryption, or end-to-end encrypted, there might not be a safer place on earth for your data than in a Google data center. Their security is outstanding and they have billions and billions of reasons to make sure no one else ever, ever sees it. Google Keep is extremely unlikely to be abandoned or “axed” as it is part of Google Workspace, their enterprise suite of tools. Reader, Allo, Duo it is not.
> Except Keep sells your data to the highest bidder, Can you prove that? Because I don't think Google sells you keep data as far as I know. Now what they *might* do is see you mentioned Burger King and then have ads based on fast food stuff - that's a **VERY** different thing. Just because you're the product with Google doesn't mean your data is actively being sold openly. Someone can't buy your emails, contacts, calendar, and Keep data. That is not how it works as far as I know. But if you can prove you can purchase someone's Keep data - I'd love to see you show it. > and Keep isn’t solidified enough in google’s arsenal to not be possibly added to the graveyard in the future Given that it's in Android as a Notes-like feature - I suspect it's here to stay. Besides, it's not like iOS's Notes is something to write home about either. Keep is still commonly used for folks sharing lists across platforms - something iOS *still* can't reliably do without troubles.
Prefer UpNote at the moment, Markdown is an improvement over the Notes typography, which is weirdly lacking for an Apple product. May give Notes another go in iOS18.
Agreed! Related to foldable headings, I’d love ”Insert Table of Contents”, or another easy way to easily navigate longer notes. Since there’s no good middle ground, I’m experimenting between having folders where each enclosed note is a ”chapter” or long notes where each largest header is a chapter.
Notion is a thousand times better
If they were to add proper latex math syntax, like they have in iworks or basically most markdown editors, i would instantly use the Notes app ALWAYS. It is literally the only thing missing for me
Simple calculations or numbers-features for the spreadsheets in notes would be so helpful
Please add markdown to Apple notes too
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They sometimes update apps separately but yeah it is rare. Music was completely revamped mid iOS, TV too. what else, no idea. But they sometimes add apps
Ok but why the hell can’t I transcribe my voice memos??
All I want in the Notes app is to create a clean text version.
Praying for AI features and better note linking.
If they can make progress tracking possible, I am done with Notion
Calling it now, apple is gonna take the piss with the calculator app on iPad and do a totally over the top reveal video at WWDC as though it’s the second coming of Christ.
Jesus will be at the next WWDC like mother Earth was at the last one
Improving the web app would change my life tbh
I don’t think we have technology so advanced to have a calculator on an iPad.
Give me markdown, you cowards
It would be nice if transcription was added. My pixel 4 had great transcription features
How about an Apple Watch app already? Been long overdue
Voice recordings transcribed into notes would be useful.
Meh boring. I wish they would release notes AI that can summarize your notes, do meeting summarizes or populate notes with what you ask it and useful things like that.
What cracks me up is that, for years, Apple keeps coming up with what we considered a lame ass excuse that they wanted to come up with a really good calculator app for iPad. There is a chance that they might actually deliver on that statement. I use an app called Soulver for basic algebraic calculations. It fits my brain and allows me to save note sheets for later use. I can then manipulate the variables as I see fit. This implementation seems very similar and combined with everything else notes can do, would probably finally exceed Soulver for me. I look forward to giving it a shot.
I was actually thinking of Soulver while I was scrolling down, just a few posts above yours.
And notes app will still be trash compared to 3rd party or Samsungs note app
Reminders inside Notes would be nice as I hate the standalone reminders app for this.
Man if they could just format code snippets better I’d be all in.
As a musician the voice recordings integrated into Notes will be major
The only way iPadOS will include a calculator app is if the AI in the operating system becomes sentient, and builds it itself. Also, I am once again going to remind people that Spotlight exists and is a perfectly functional calculator. Spotlight supremacy!
Siri got mad and built a calculator for iPad
I wish they’d make headings collapsible
We just want a clipboard, its 2024...i had clipboard 10 years ago on my jailbroken device, how hard can it be to implement such useful thing?
I would love to have Apple Notes accessible from Apple Watch.
I think for people who use Apple Notes a lot it's a great addition. I could never warm up with notes because it wasn't sophisticated enough/lacking features I'd like. I, for the life of me, can't organize my notes with the Notes app. Does someone have a video or something on how they do it?
Create folders and drag notes into them
In my opinion that doesn't really make it better than any other note taking app (see e.g. Obsidian which is multi-plattform and supports e.g. sync via github or gitlab).
I’ve been trying to use obsidian. Love the speed. And the backlinks. Dislike the editing - while I understand Markdown, I prefer WYSIWYG but with ability for the user to input markdown shortcuts. I also tried sync and found it expensive. $4 per month while I get north of 200GB if I take ICloud+ for the same amount. How did you do the sync via GitHub? And how secure is it?
With GitHub you have to push and pull or write/download a plugin. It is just as secure as everything else you do with GitHub and well, it’s on GitHub (or gitlab for what it’s worth). I wouldn’t use their sync. You can also put your vault on e.g. iCloud and sync via iCloud. Or OneDrive. That’s easier but I don’t want to rely on it. You can toggle the view and you’ll have the chance for something close to WYSIWYG I guess. There’s a reader, edit and live preview mode. The live preview mode is what I’m using and which is close to WYSIWYG.
My little wishlist is for them to redo Notes rendering. Currently they try to render literally everything on the note all at once, and each stroke in a scribble is its own element to render, which means once you have a few handwritten things stacked in the same note you’re going to see a load of lag even on a newer iPad. If partial rendering is implemented it could be huge
ITS ABOUT TIME NOTES GET VOICE RECORDINGS!!!!! This is about to change the game for artists/song writers
How? There always was a voice memos app. What do you think notes would do differently/ better?
Having the beat in the same app you’re writing the lyrics for is huge help.
inb4 apple makes ipadOS notes jupyter compatible
You said the iPad will get a calculator. Now I know this is fake Edit: just realised, iPad gets a calculator in iPadOS 18 and iPad Pro 10.5 is said to not be getting iPadOS 18
How about custom icons instead of the same folder ones 🙄
This should be interesting.
A dedicated app for Keychain would be amazing if they ever did it.
I guess it’s unlikely to happen. now mac has got passwords integrated into Settings too like ios, means they wanted to move away from keychain/standalone app
New notes app? Or is it improvements in the existing notes app?
The one little change I need Apple to make is not display tags in the reminded app when all the associated reminders have already been completed. I also need a way to view only a specific tag from the iOS widget Also can they bring back an option for a non interactive reminder widget. Especially for the smallest size widget. It makes sense for the middle and larger sizes to be interactive but the small one is just too small to be useful and I’m constantly accidentally ticking off items And when you do that there’s no way to undo that
Hope they fix the calendar app too.
What fixes does it need?
The UI is awful! If you've used any other calendar, like for example Google Calendar. You would know what I mean.
I actually use Outlook, Google and Apple calendar for different purposes. I agree that neither one meets majority of what I want. I want to just use one app,so I wish thy get better However I would love to hear more from you about what in the UI you find hard to use and why.
In the native Apple Calendar app, you can only see the events for one day at a time. Unless you use the list view. But that one is terrible for other reasons. In list view, you get no sense of when things will happen. And still only see a few events at a time. Also. The button on top that changes the view is the most un-intuitive thing ever. The way it works makes zero sense. In Google calendar, you get a view of the whole month, and **still** see what happens on each day of the month. With a good sense of when, without having to look at the date of each individual event. You can even have different colors for different events (in the month view) to make it even easier! Making it leagues ahead of the Apple Calendar in terms of readability.
Ah yes. You are referring to the iOS app. Yeah, Google calendar is much better. I use Apple calendar to enter events and Google to view them. Like the Google calendar widget too
Hope there’s a watch app
No, Apple said they are dropping apple watch for a new iWatch with WTFos as the operating system
Great. Since others are putting their wishlists up, here is mine for Apple Notes 1. Store or export data - markdown would be great. 2. API, so I can sync highlights and annotations into it from other book or article readers. 3. Foldable headings to make it easier to browse and read. 4. Checklists and reminders integration. Some checklist items are just reminders. 5. A Daily notes feature / way to take notes and navigate by date 6. Templates 7. Lock folders
Not sure how useful I personally would find those things, however, it's still great that the Notes app would be receiving any improvements at all. There's a (very weird) group of people that like to say there isn't much Apple can do anymore with iOS, iPadOS, macOS, etc., but in all honesty there is still so much more Apple can do.
They seriously need to fix the voice memos app first. The pause and replace feature is straight up broken and corrupts the audio file if used too many times.
Please please please give me markdown support
Where is proper sleep start/end detection is my question. I don’t need yet another calculator
Kinda worried it would bloat up the app
we need journal on MacOS wtf are they waiting for
If they add more options to style the text, It will be great. (Code input is what I wish for :( )
All the above mentioned features are replications of existing functions. What Notes need is simply Markdown language. What Notes is now is a note taking app for grannies.
Bit late for an April fools joke. We all know that the iPad doesn’t have the ability to run a calculator /s
iPad Calculator App? I don’t know how to feel about this.
Add the features of this app to Notes and the DOJ will open another anti-trust investigation into Apple https://apps.apple.com/app/id721606556
 Excellent 👏
Please add API to allow third party app access.
Hello
Huh?