Here’s a fun little update to the Notes app in iOS 18 that I suspect is probably more useful on the iPad but also works on the iPhone, and that’s the ability to convert your scratchy, scruffy handwriting into something a bit more legible. In the Notes app, I’m going to use my finger to jot down a couple of notes. I can do that by pressing the little drawing icon on the toolbar here. I’m then going to scribble just the word “hello.”

Now, my handwriting is certainly not the neatest in the world, and it’s even harder when you’re writing on a phone using your finger, as I’m sure you realise. But once you’ve written that word, if you exit the drawing tools and tap and hold on your handwriting, you get this little floating menu bar. Swiping sideways on this menu eventually gives you the option to Refine your writing. Tapping on this uses the AI built into Notes to make your writing more legible and easier to read.

And as you can see, just like that, Notes has converted my handwriting into a slightly neater version of the same handwriting. If you don’t want to change it too much, on that floating menu bar there’s the option to Straighten your writing as well, which will just level it horizontally for you. But I like the Refine option here to make it look a bit neater.

This will also work if you make a spelling mistake in your writing. So, I’m going to jot down a casual word here – “subscribe.” Not sure why I’d put that in a YouTube video, but I’m going to spell it wrong just for the sake of this demo (I can spell normally, I promise). As you can see, I’ve got that little blue dotted line underneath to indicate that the spelling is incorrect. Tapping on it shows me the correct spelling, and when I select it, Notes will change my handwritten text into the correct spelling, in a version of handwriting that still looks like mine – it tries to match your style the best it can.

I think this is a really cool feature, and as you can imagine, on an iPad with a Pencil, it’s probably way more effective. But for those quick notes that you jot down, which are going to be slightly rough and ready, this really does help make them a little bit easier to read.

This is one of those features in iOS 18 that kind of flies under the radar. It’s not one of the big headline features like the new Control Centre or the new icon tinting, but it makes a difference to how you use your device. I spent the summer looking at iOS 18 and I’ve picked out a hundred things that I think make your iPhone better than it was before you updated to iOS 18. I’ve created an eBook in the link below which will guide you through, in friendly and easy-to-understand language, 100 new things your iPhone can do. And if you’d rather have videos, please do check out my channel down below. All of these QuickTips will be uploaded there over the coming days, weeks, and months, and they can help you make the most out of your devices. I’ll see you next time.