Make the most of Notes

Discover all the new and useful features on offer in the Notes app

- Kenny Hemphill

Apple's Notes app was, for a long time, unloved both by users and, seemingly, by Apple itself. Updates were uninspiring and did nothing to help it compete with the dozens of other note-taking apps available for Mac, iPhone and iPad.

And there was a disastrous dalliance with skeuomorphism when Apple decided it would be a good idea to make digital notes look like more like paper.

All that has changed, though. And the last couple of updates to all Apple's platforms have seen Notes improve in leaps and bounds.

More extensive features

The ability to share, lock, create and add to notes from anywhere using Quick Notes, and organise them using tags and folders have all made the app a genuinely useful tool and a serious option for anyone who has previously only ever considered using the likes of Evernote or Microsoft's OneNote.

Smart Folders now enable you to specify the conditions a note must meet to appear in the folder. And you can even collaborate on notes with other people and get updates on changes they have made to a note since you last viewed it.

Notes also has a bunch of Shortcut actions, and there are several pre-cooked Shortcuts in that app's gallery that use Notes. We particularly like Day in Review which asks you questions about how your day has gone and what you hope for the following day and records it as note in Notes.

IT WILL TAKE > 30 minutes