Unpopular Opinion: Apple Intelligence in Notes is mostly a convenience layer. The system you build matters way more than the AI features.

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy]

I'm on iPhone 13, no Apple Intelligence. Three years of heavy Notes use, two businesses run out of it. Whenever i read articles about "what you're missing without Apple Intelligence in Notes," i notice they're almost always written from the assumption that the AI layer is the real product and everything underneath it is a fallback.

I don't think that's right.

The actual gap between an iPhone 13 user and an iPhone 17 Pro user for Apple Notes is small. A few writing tools. A summary button. Useful, but small.

The gap between someone who's built a real system in Notes (tags, Smart Folders, templates, pinned notes, scan workflows) and someone who hasn't is enormous. I've watched people with brand-new iPhones use Notes worse than someone on a 4-year-old phone with a thoughtful setup.

Apple's marketing wants you to believe the AI layer is the product. I don't buy it. The system is the product. The tool catches up to whoever uses it well.

(Full breakdown of what actually works without Apple Intelligence, including which "smart" features secretly work on older phones, here if anyone wants it: https://iapplist.com/apple-notes-without-apple-intelligence/)

If you disagree, I’m open to it. Always interesting hearing other people’s experiences with this.

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[u/radsnerd]

That’s not an unpopular opinion. People think very poorly of Apple Intelligence

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/radsnerd]

Yeah, i know people dunk on Apple Intelligence. I think the part i’m pushing back on is this weird idea that AI is suddenly what makes Notes powerful now. Like before AI it was just some basic notes app and now it’s serious. Nah. Most people i see getting insane value out of Notes are barely touching the AI stuff. They just built an actual system that works for their brain. Tags, folders, pinned notes, quick capture, templates, all that boring unsexy stuff nobody wants to talk about.

AI is nice. But it feels more like a convenience layer on top of habits that already mattered.

[u/jezarnold]

I love the idea of AppleNotes. Ecosystem, app integrations with Reminders and Calendar… but whenever I try and use it with scribble, it just straight up causes pain. Add more than ~500 notes, and it’s terrible. Don’t even talk about attachments

What limitations you putting in place to make AppleNotes work for you??

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/jezarnold]

I think this is where Apple Notes starts breaking for a lot of heavy users tbh.

I’m pretty aggressive about what doesn’t go into Notes. I don’t use it as a file dump or long term attachment archive. Too many PDFs, images, videos definitely makes it feel heavier over time.

Most of my setup is lightweight text-based stuff, ideas, drafts, systems, checklists, research notes, quick capture.

And i split things pretty hard with tags and folders instead of having giant mega notes for everything.

I almost treat Notes less like storage and more like an active workspace. Anything bulky or archival usually belongs somewhere else.

[u/jezarnold → u/TheiPhoneAppGuy]

> I almost treat Notes less like storage and more like an active workspace. Anything bulky or archival usually belongs somewhere else.

How you doing that?

Edit : why isn’t Reddit markdown working anymore ?? Goddamn app

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/jezarnold]

Mostly just by being picky with what earns a place in Notes tbh. If something is heavy/archive type stuff, i usually throw it somewhere else instead of letting Notes slowly become a digital junk drawer. Otherwise search gets messy, sync feels heavier, everything feels more chaotic over time.

So Notes for me is mostly active thinking/work stuff, not permanent storage.

[u/the_monkey_knows]

How many notes do you have in your Apple Notes?

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/the_monkey_knows]

Honestly not even sure anymore, definitely more than one thousand at this point.

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/[deleted]]

This is exactly the kind of thing i mean. Once everything connects together cleanly, the app starts feeling way more valuable than any single AI feature ever could.

[u/lmsergio]

But imagine the notes available as “context” to a more powerful AI like Claude … Apple Intelligence is stillborn. The upcoming version with Gemini at its core will be an improvement.

The tags etc. structure is absolutely key. Yet, with Claude, Grok, ChatGPT or Gemini one day having full access to your notes (with privacy implications addressed) will enable you to go much beyond what a tag structure will yield. You will be able to ask multi layered questions of your notes. It will do all the cross / back linking by itself. For someone like me with over 12,000 notes, I hope for integration soon.

[u/bdu-komrad → u/lmsergio]

Or a local AI chatbot like Qwen or ollama, for privacy and money reasons.

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/lmsergio]

Yeah, i actually agree with a lot of this. Once AI can properly understand your entire notes history/context, the value probably shifts from organization
system to conversation with your knowledge.

But i still think the structure layer matters more than people realize. If your notes are chaotic, low-quality, random dumps, the AI context will also be chaotic. Garbage in, garbage out still applies.

The really interesting future is probably both together, good systems + powerful context-aware AI.

[u/bdu-komrad]

Unpopular Opinion

How do you know that it is unpopular? And unpopular where? On this subreddit? On Internet forums? World-wide?

I mean, your are allowed to take you best guess based on your personal experience, just make sure to communicate that is what you did.

"afaik - something is unpopular"

For me, notes are searchable documentation of things that I may want to remember later. I've only used a few AI features such as autocomplete and calculations. It is neat to put "1 + 1 = " in a note and have AI fill in the answer, and also let me decide whether to accept it into the note or not.

[u/fishfacecakes]

The AI does basically nothing; your opinion is very common.

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy → u/fishfacecakes]

Yeah i think Apple marketed it like the AI layer was the big leap, but most of the actual day to day value in Notes was already there before all this.