There are almost as many ways to take notes as there are people taking them.
But lets be honestmost people use the Notes app built into their computer or phone.
Quick Notes
The easiest way to explain the power of Quick Notes is with an example.
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Say youre reading something in Safari that you want to save for later.
The text is clipped to a note, along with a link to the original web page.
And the text you initially selected is highlighted in yellow.
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you’re free to just clip all the interesting parts into a note.
you could even share a note with somebody else.
Game Changer
Its this persistent highlighting that really changes things.
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Youve always been able to clip a section of a web page, perhaps with the link included.
But with these highlights, you might instantly see the clipped text in context.
Its exactly like marking up paper to refer to later, only easier and better.
Quick Notes can also clip from other apps.
In the iPadOS 15 beta, it appears to use the same mechanisms that lets Siri dig into apps.
Right now these are just linkscurrently you’re free to only clip and highlight text in Safari.
Apple Only
There are limits, of course.
But the biggest limitation is that this is Apple-only.
If you use any other equipment, youre out of luck.
AI and knowledge-management consultantDaniel Rasmustold Lifewire via email.
Rasmus also wonders if “migration of existing content will be an issue.”
Third-party tools exist to import and export notes to and from standard formats.
And as we mentioned, many people, maybe even most people, just use the built-in apps.
This is fantastic for users, but not so great for third-party app developers.
