Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Notes Created in iOS 15 and macOS 12 Betas May Not Show Up on Earlier Versions

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,490
37,775


If you've installed the public beta of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, or macOS Monterey on any of your devices, you may have already tried out some of the new features Apple has added to the Notes app, such as the ability to use @ user mentions in shared notes and the long-desired support for tags.

ipados-15-notes.jpg

However, some users have discovered that notes containing instances of these two new features don't show up in some earlier versions of iOS and macOS, so it's best just to stay away from them if you have any other devices still running older versions of Apple's desktop or mobile operating systems.

As reported by 9to5Mac, if the Notes app identifies a device in your iCloud account running a version earlier than iOS 14.5 or macOS 11.3, it will alert you to the fact that tagged notes or notes containing mentions will be hidden on those devices.

On the plus side, if your other devices are fully up-to-date and running iOS 14.5 or macOS Big Sur 11.3 or later, then it appears that any notes using @ mentions or tags are able to be opened by those versions.

As always with beta software, it's inadvisable to install these version on devices that you rely on for work or anything else important, especially if you're using multiple devices on the same Apple account, this example being a case in point.

Article Link: Notes Created in iOS 15 and macOS 12 Betas May Not Show Up on Earlier Versions
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/06/notes-ios-15-monterey-not-showing-older-os/
  • Wow
Reactions: diamond.g
Notes created in iOS 14.6 already don’t show up on my 2011 iMac (High Sierra). I use Notes a lot so I’ve resorted to accessing it on iCloud.com until I get a new MacBook. Recommended if you find yourself in a similar situation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4339142 and matrix07
I loved "notes" on my imac 2011 and 2016 ipad but now it's time to shift to "onenote" of MS. I can see and edit from all my apple devices and my galaxy phone AND can share with anyone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DevNull0 and hsotnicam8002
ian87w said:
Oh that sucks. The problem is many probably still have macs that are way older than their iDevices. So their iDevices might be up to date, but the macs may not. And Big Sur dropped support of many macs. :(
Click to expand...
Big Sur dropped support for really old Mac, Monterey dropped support for my 2014 MBP 15, the only thing I can see from the 2015 is the slower memory channels only having 2 channels vs 4 in the 2015. That being said, my 2014 sees the new notes just fine, and it is now 7 years old (about 4 years older than any Dell I ever owned)
 
  • Like
Reactions: xmach and donguevas
I wish Apple would decide if they want Notes to be a full-fledged note taking app or not. They keep adding features that can be beneficial, but on the other hand we still can't do simple things like drag and drop to order bullet points. At times it seems they want to be OneNote, and at other times they want to be a scratchpad.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: mac&cheesey, hsotnicam8002, rjp1 and 3 others
jive turkey said:
I wish Apple would decide if they want Notes to be a full-fledged note taking app or not. They keep adding features that can be beneficial, but on the other hand we still can't do simple things like drag and drop to order bullet points. At times it seems they want to be OneNote, and at other times they want to be a scratchpad.
Click to expand...
It works just fine for me though. I even put Music I like in it, and it has links to Apple Music, I take pictures of restaurants in a new city, and the map links are awesome. If I wanted more, I could always find another app. Besides Congress is trying to legislate that Apple can't put Notes on its devices (weird much?)
 
Venderious said:
Planned obsolescence again. Forcing me to upgrade to a new MacBook, to continue using simple features in conjuction with my iPhone.
Click to expand...
How old is your MacBook? Mine is 2014, and it works just fine, can't update to Monterey, but I still have all the features other than tags. "Planned Obsolescence again". - just a false narrative again
 
  • Like
Reactions: citysnaps
Too bad the Notes app is Apple only. I use Onenote instead. As I need something which works cross platform. Without resorting to a web app.

Hajj.david said:
You do realize Apple very significantly improved notes functionality, and added tons of rich text formatting. Theres no way it would work on older versions.
Click to expand...

I think the issue is. Something like this is tied to the OS version. Rather than making Notes and other apps independent updates from the OS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Venderious, freedomlinux, RPi-AS and 4 others
Venderious said:
I highly doubt 2014 MacBooks would not be able to handle a feature such as tags or mentions.
Click to expand...
Apple can't support older hardware forever. It's not about a machines ability to render rich text or not, it's more about the engineering effort required to enable it.

If you're that desperate for the new Notes features, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to get Monterey on to the older (not supported) hardware.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: xmach and rettro
Apple welcomes you to the walled garden!
That’s simply one of Apple ways to enforce upgrade. They did this in the past, they are doing it now, and will do in the future.

Of course there are simple ways to make it backward compatible, e.g by untying it from macOS and release it as an standalone Application.

Hehehe but why cut off potential revenue, right!
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
Reactions: sydneysider88, sinoka56 and iGeneo
grav0 said:
Notes created in iOS 14.6 already don’t show up on my 2011 iMac (High Sierra). I use Notes a lot so I’ve resorted to accessing it on iCloud.com until I get a new MacBook. Recommended if you find yourself in a similar situation.
Click to expand...
They were fine on my 2011 iMac in High Sierra from my iPad 2020 and iPhone XS Max on iOS 14.6.

iOS 15 beta books doesn’t sync with that iMac though.
 
Maybe a stupid question, but how do you highlight text like in the picture? Or is this something finally coming to Notes in the new versions?
 
velocityg4 said:
Too bad the Notes app is Apple only. I use Onenote instead. As I need something which works cross platform. Without resorting to a web app.



I think the issue is. Something like this is tied to the OS version. Rather than making Notes and other apps independent updates from the OS.
Click to expand...
I finally just got rid of OneNote for Notes after using OneNote for many years. Microsoft is not sure what versions they are supporting, especially on Windows where there are now two versions again. Windows 11 has dropped the Windows 10 version, so I guess they are going back to the Office 2016 version they brought out of retirement?

I found OneNote really slow on iOS devices compared to Notes. That and notes has advanced so much that it equals the features I used i in OneNote. I am lucky in that I never have to actually use a Windows computer for work if I do not want to. There is the web version if I had too.

I would bet Notes uses some underlying OS features to work. If the OS can't be upgraded on a older Mac then I think that is the key issue.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: sinoka56
Venderious said:
I highly doubt 2014 MacBooks would not be able to handle a feature such as tags or mentions.
Click to expand...
Over the past ~5 years, I've been increasingly wishing Apple would behave more like Microsoft. Microsoft supports software for seemingly forever, for better or worse.

I've seen Microsoft reject good ideas for improvements, saying that if they added it themselves, they'd have to make sure it was backwards compatible with devices that are 15 years old and that they'd be willing to support the feature for the next 15 years, and Microsoft instead says that third party developers should instead add in the features themselves, since third party developers don't have to hold themselves to such standards of such extensive support.

Apple used to be more like that, I think. Apple used to (unofficially) support Macs for ~10 years. Apple used to say No to 100 good ideas so they could focus on the 10 great ideas.

Apple used to be great at a lot of stuff. Now... I guess Apple is good at making CPUs? That's cool and all... but I wish Apple would be better at testing (especially regression testing), not having bugs, and having devices last a decade.

I don't love my 2016 Dell laptop by any means, but my 2018 MacBook Pro is starting to have so many problems that I wonder whether the older Dell laptop is going to outlast the MBP (both are for work. I had a job that required a Windows machine. And then a few years later I switched to a job that required an Apple laptop. For personal stuff, I've actually switched to just buying Raspberry Pi devices... they're not supported for long, but for a new computer that rivals devices 10x times as expensive as it... who cares? I could literally buy the top end one every year and it'd be cheaper than buying a new Mac Mini everytime Apple stopped supporting it.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Venderious, RPi-AS and sydneysider88
I put iOS 15 beta on my phone just for Live Text to save time at work.
When it came time to open those Notes on my (personal) computer running Catalina/Big Sur, they wouldn’t sync… which meant it took me longer than had I re-typed all the notes myself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back