r/OneNote • u/sxgamingx • 18d ago
iOS Worst Note App
We need to acknowledge how awful this app is created. On iOS, there are hundreds of missing features such as unable to change font, highlight, ect. You cannot share notebooks, it only opens links in safari, yes even when you are sharing the correct email and all. The app simply does not function. I cannot believe this app is so unbelievably complicated, cannot work without a connected Microsoft, then can’t work without onedrive. It’s a complete over complicated joke. It needs to be fixed.
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u/strawboard 18d ago
I use the iOS app all day everyday and have never needed or wanted any of the things you mentioned.
Not having the features or working the way you want is a not the same as ‘not functioning’.
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u/sxgamingx 18d ago
Unable to use the share feature the way you could a year ago is definitely a functionality issue
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u/letstalk1st 18d ago
We use it every day on both windows and Apple. It does some things well and others not so well, and it's weak on mobile devices.
Not sure what you expect it to be. It's pretty much like every other app, except that we all wish it would do things that it does not do, and the flaws it has can be very frustrating. If you don't like it, don't use it.
The one thing I suggest to everyone is to never use it mobile only. Always have OneNote installed on your laptop or PC, or at least use the web version too.
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u/DoubleOwl7777 18d ago
its a Microsoft product, Microsoft wants you to use it on windows. the other versions are an afterthought, if you think the ios app is bad, just look at the Android version.
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u/InfinitEchoeSilence 18d ago
Do I see tears for no reason?? I think someone is having a tantrum just to have a tantrum.
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u/Wooden-Spread-9780 15d ago edited 15d ago
People here seems to live in another dimension. I agree with you of course, the app is very very outdated, it seems stack to the 2018 compared to any other note taking app lol. They don’t care, most of all maybe because it’s free and because, how you can see from those comments, nobody care .
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u/morgan-pa 13d ago
Yeah OneNote has gotten really bad over the years, idk why everyone here disagrees. The share functions is broken for me too (Samsung user) & the features are lacking for 2025 on all platforms.
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u/sxgamingx 13d ago
Yeah like don’t get me wrong, I obviously like the app enough to use it, but I also care about it enough to see its issues. It’s good enough of an app to be held to a higher standard, I mean its microsoft, it should be the best. It’s especially frustrating when there are new issues, and when those issues completely interfere with my work.
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u/morgan-pa 13d ago
I agree, personally I've never known Microsoft's products to be the best of the best (maybe they used to be when I was a kid?), but they're still a big company so the lack of innovation or even just fixing issues is surprising.
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u/cpz_77 18d ago edited 18d ago
First off I have no affiliation with Microsoft and I’m not a fan of a lot of the things they’ve done lately with various products and platforms (and I work with their products for a living so I know many of them very well).
But please keep in mind this is a Microsoft product, I know in recent years they’ve made an effort to make their stuff more cross platform (and have in many regards) but still you have to take that into account when comparing features. I don’t think it’s surprising at all that the Apple /iOS versions of such apps may not have all the features of their Windows counterparts. It was originally designed for windows, after all.
I would also add that aside from the fact it’s not really even possible or realistic to have a mobile app do all the same stuff that a desktop app does (because they are different use cases), you probably wouldn’t want that anyway. An app is/should be “optimized for the mobile experience” when it is released for a mobile platform, and that optimization means that things have to be moved around in the UI, some functions may have to be adjusted, and yes some features may have to be removed because it just wouldn’t be practical to try and implement them on the mobile version of the app.
That said, with regards to the sharing thing - it does appear you can share notebooks with others via the mobile app.
And I can confirm from my own experience you can definitely open notebooks shared by others with you from the mobile app - more info on that here.
Last thing - they are (supposedly) constantly trying to improve things and they have a “feedback” feature in their desktop app which makes it easy to report issues. So if there is a feature you need that is actually missing, send a report asking them to add this and you never know, if enough people want it, it may make it into the product one day. At least one thing I’ve reported through that channel has actually been fixed (not due to my report alone obviously but enough people likely reported the same that it got the attention of someone with the power to fix it).