Apps I Use: The Apple Notes App
My 5 Favorite Features
My 5 Favorite Features
The Notes app from Apple is one of the oldest native apps for the iPhone, the iPad, and the Mac. It began as just a basic note-taking app, but since its major upgrade with the release of iOS13, Notes has become much more useful. We are now on iOS14 and we also have the dedicated iPad iOS.
Disclaimer: I am a total Apple Fangirl. I have two Macs, two iPads, and always the latest iPhone. When I write about apps or systems, I am writing from that worldview. Some of the apps I discuss MAY work on Windows and Android, but I cannot speak to that. I only deal with the Mac OS, iOS, and Apple computers and devices.
There are so many note-taking apps available, and I actually just started using my Notes app much more frequently lately. Because I have so many devices, it is imperative that my apps are available on all of them, and especially that the information stays synched in real-time.
Back in the dark ages of about 2–3 years ago, I wrote everything in my paper journals. I kept a page open in my journal to write down quick notes that I would get back to later; that way I wouldn’t have to interrupt what I was doing.
But now that I am 99.99% digital, I like apps that let me keep everything online and in the cloud, in the case of Apple, in iCloud. The synching is seamless and instant.
There are many features in the Apple Notes app, and many benefits to using it as your (or one of your) primary note-taking applications, but here I will list just five of my favorites.
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The Top Five Reasons I Love the Apple Notes App
OCR Searching One of the top benefits of going digital over analog is the ability to search your entries. The Apple Notes app can search your typed notes, your handwritten notes, and now also your images and scanned documents.
Scanning Capabilities There are a lot of dedicated apps you can use to scan documents, but with the Apple Notes app, you can scan in any document, including receipts, just by accessing your iPhone camera and selecting “Scan Documents.”
Advanced Formatting Options In addition to the regular formatting options, such as bold and italics, you can also underline (a function not available with Markdown), indent, create subheadings, and easily make checklists that have drag and drop capabilities. Of course, you can make numbered or bulleted lists and sublists, as well as generate and use paragraph styles. Typing in a URL automatically turns that text into a hotline.
Additional ways to make a note It is now very easy to quickly dictate a note, meaning you do not have to stop what you’re doing to type the information. You can also add a note using Siri, just by saying: “Hey Siri, take a note.”
Share a folder Previously, you could share individual notes, but now you can share an entire folder with anyone you want. You can also share a note or a folder in view-only mode.
The One Thing I Miss Most in the Apple Notes App
For some reason, there is no tagging functionality in the Apple Notes app. You can organize your notes into folders, but the quickest way to find a note (besides OCR), is to use a tag. Hopefully, this will be addressed in the next update. You can, however, pin frequently used notes to the top of your list.
The other two note-taking apps I use frequently are Bear and Evernote, both of which also have the web-clipping functionality that Apple Notes does not have, but I am now using the Notes app much more frequently for really quick notes and checklists.
What is your favorite note-taking app? Do you use more than one? Let us know in the comments.
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