iOS 27 Notes App Features: What Changes at Launch and What Doesn't

Apple Notes is gaining clipboard-level Markdown support in iOS 27, a change that removes a persistent friction point for anyone who moves text between Notes and external writing tools. Pasted Markdown converts automatically to rich text, and note content can be exported as raw Markdown syntax through a new edit menu option, 9to5Mac reported last week. That combination, along with native divider lines and several UI refinements, lands at iOS 27's general release. The AI-related additions operate on a different timeline entirely.

iOS 27 is currently in developer beta, with a public beta due next month and a full release shipping this fall as a free update, Apple confirmed earlier this month.

iOS 27 Notes app features available at launch

Not all the Notes changes arrive together or reach the same users.

Markdown clipboard conversion, the Copy as Markdown option, divider lines, and the UI refinements are part of the standard iOS 27 Notes update, with no Apple Intelligence hardware or language requirement, per 9to5Mac last week.

Siri AI note insertion is a different story. It requires Apple Intelligence-capable hardware, launches as a separate beta later this fall rather than with the initial iOS 27 release, starts with English only, and will not be available in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, or watchOS at launch, per the App Store's iOS 27 feature listing and Apple's Newsroom announcement.

Image Playground's upgraded generative capabilities, including photorealistic output and broader image styles, have not yet been surfaced inside Notes in the current developer beta, 9to5Mac reported last week. That integration is expected to appear in later betas.

What changed in Apple Notes Markdown support from iOS 26 to iOS 27

iOS 26 introduced Markdown import and export to Notes as a file-level capability: you could move documents in and out in plain-text format, 9to5Mac noted last week. What it didn't do was handle Markdown on the clipboard.

iOS 27 closes that gap. Copy Markdown from anywhere, paste it into Notes, and it converts immediately to formatted rich text with no intermediate step required, according to 9to5Mac last week. Syntax for headings, lists, bold, and italics are among the formats that conversion handles.

The reverse is equally direct. A new "Copy as Markdown" option in the edit menu exports selected note content as raw Markdown syntax, ready for any plain-text environment, per 9to5Mac last week.

iOS 26 treated Markdown as a file format; iOS 27 treats it as a live interchange format. For writers who draft in Notes and publish elsewhere, or who pull structured content into Notes from developer tools, that shift removes a manual conversion step that previously had no native workaround.

One caveat worth noting before depending on this for complex documents: whether conversion handles more advanced Markdown elements like tables, nested lists, code blocks, or footnotes hasn't been confirmed in available sources from the current beta.

Notes has long supported semantic styles, including headings, subheadings, and block quotes, and can map structured text into its internal style system, per Apple's WWDC25 developer session. That underlying architecture helps explain why Markdown conversion maps to proper rich-text formatting rather than collapsing everything to unstyled text.

Divider lines and UI refinements

Notes now supports native divider lines. Tap where a divider should go, open the edit menu, and select "Insert Divider Line," 9to5Mac reported last week. For longer notes covering multiple topics, it's a practical organizational tool that's been missing for longer than it should have been.

The visual layer gets a refresh as well: a new app icon, Liquid Glass updates to buttons and menus, and updated iconography for shared folders and individual shared notes, according to 9to5Mac last week.

Neither of these changes carries hardware restrictions or language requirements. They ship to anyone running iOS 27 at launch, which makes them a useful contrast against the more conditional AI additions below.

Siri AI in Notes: what it does and who gets it

The redesigned Siri AI can add information to a new or existing note without interrupting whatever else is on screen, according to 9to5Mac last week. It's part of a broader assistant overhaul that Apple describes as capable of understanding on-screen content, drawing on personal context to search across apps, and pulling live information from the web.

Messages will also surface one-tap suggestions to create a note or reminder based on conversation context, Apple announced earlier this month. A lightweight shortcut, but a practical one for capturing things that surface mid-thread.

The access conditions are worth reading carefully. Siri AI requires Apple Intelligence-capable hardware, launches as a separate beta later this fall, starts in English only, and will not be available in the EU on iOS, iPadOS, or watchOS at launch, per the App Store's iOS 27 feature listing and Apple's Newsroom. That's a meaningful portion of the global iOS user base excluded at launch.

What Siri AI can do inside an existing note beyond adding information, whether it can reorganize, summarize, or reformat content already there, goes beyond what current sources confirm. "Add information" is the described capability; anything further remains unverified in the current beta.

On Image Playground: Apple has announced photorealistic output via Private Cloud Compute and automatic SynthID watermarking on generated images, but those capabilities haven't been exposed inside Notes in the current developer beta, 9to5Mac reported last week, with the expectation they'll surface in future betas.

What to watch as the beta progresses

For users who can install iOS 27 at general release, the Markdown clipboard tools and divider lines are the most broadly available Notes changes, with no hardware or language prerequisites. The Siri AI story remains partial: hardware requirements, English-language restrictions, a separate beta rollout, and EU exclusions all apply at launch.

The questions worth tracking in subsequent betas are whether Image Playground integration appears inside Notes, whether Siri AI gains the ability to act on content already in a note rather than just appending to it, and how far Markdown conversion extends into more complex document structures. Apple's direction for Notes, as a structured drafting surface with genuine cross-app portability, is legible. How much of it arrives for most users by launch is still being settled.