The built-in Apple Notes app is said to gain Markdown syntax support, which is great news for people who prefer to format and style text without the built-in features.
“Apple is working on supporting the ability to export notes in Markdown from Apple Notes, which is something third-party apps have supported for years,” according to 9to5Mac. “Granted, this is a niche feature, but as a fierce participant in the niche, I can confirm: this is huge.”
As someone who prefers to write in Markdown from time to time, I can also confirm that this is huge. Markdown isn’t for everyone, but for those who know the Markdown syntax, it can be much faster to style text directly in Markdown while typing, instead of wasting time clicking the built-in formatting options.
Rumor: iOS 26 adds Markdown support to Apple Notes
Created by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber in 2004 as an easy-to-read lightweight markup language, Markdown lets you style text with special alphanumeric strings, like **bold** to bold text and # Header to insert a header, Or, you can create a link by putting anchor text in square brackets, followed by the link in the parentheses.
Markdown is supported by many popular text editors like Bear and Notion, as well as coding environments and platforms like GitHub or Reddit. The Notes app already supports text styling and formatting, but Markdown support would let you format your notes using just the keyboard, without interacting with the built-in controls.
I hope I’ll be able to access the underlying Markdown code in Notes to export elsewhere, but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed for that. It’s more likely that Notes will convert Markdown into proper HTML on the fly, as you’re typing. I also wish Apple would add version history to Notes and bring Markdown support to Mail.
iOS 26 is also expected to bring a host of other changes, including a Now Playing widget that animates album art in fullscreen on your iPhone’s Lock Screen. Apple is also rumored to redesign the user interfaces across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV.
WWDC is running from June 9-13
Apple will preview the new features in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 and its other operating systems at the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday, June 9. The keynote starts at 10am / 1pm.
Following the conclusion of the keynote talk, Apple will release the first developer previews of iOS 26 and other operating systems. Versions for public beta testing will follow in July. Apple will release these updates in September ahead of new iPhones.