I Didn't Upgrade My iPhone, but Still Got These Great New Features in Apple Notes

I have a problem. I’m addicted to note-taking apps. Maybe it’s my incessant need to keep things organized; I don’t know. Whatever the issue, I was bummed about missing out on the new features of Apple Notes in iOS 18 because I chose not to update my iPhone 14 Pro. But then I discovered I didn’t miss out completely.

Apple’s built-in notetaking app, Notes, got a nice update in iOS 18. It now has new features like audio recordings with live transcriptions, new formatting features, and more. Unfortunately, I still can’t access the Apple Intelligence features, including the new Writing Tools, but I’ll manage without them for a little while.

In the meantime, I jumped into Notes this morning to start planning for all the activities that take place during the holiday season and holy cow was I blown away. First, you can highlight text. Just create the text you want to highlight (and let me just say that the dictation feature is a lifesaver for me). Then select the text and select the color you want to highlight it with. One note here, though, it also changes the color of the text. 

If that didn’t do it, then creating collapsible sections in Notes did. All you have to do is format a line of text to ‘Heading.’ Any text you create below becomes part of a section, which will continue until you create a new heading. A carat appears to the left of the heading you created that you can select to close or open a section.

As if that weren’t enough, I think my favorite new features are the recording options. Now you can record, and automatically transcribe, audio into a note. Even better, you can capture the audio from phone calls and have that transcribed. As a reporter, being able to record and transcribe a conversation easily is nearly priceless.

So, yeah, I don’t get the Apple Intelligence features of Notes, but these new features in Apple Notes almost make up for missing out on that.