Apple’s Notes app has come a long way since its humble debut alongside the first iPhone in 2007. Back then, it was a simple place to jot down text. 
Over the years, Apple has expanded it into a full-featured productivity tool – letting users create tables, headings, checklists, numbered and bullet lists, scan documents, record and transcribe audio, and even take quick notes from anywhere on iOS without opening the app directly.
In iOS 26, Apple is introducing a major improvement to the Notes app: an adaptive toolbar. Previously, the toolbar in iOS 18 offered a fixed set of tools like formatting menus, checklists, tables, attachments, markup, and Apple Intelligence writing tools. These sat above the keyboard and could be expanded for more options.
With iOS 26, the number of available tools jumps to 18, accessible by swiping left through the toolbar. But Apple realized that scrolling through all of them could be tedious, so the new adaptive toolbar intelligently predicts which tools you’re most likely to need and places them up front.
For example, when editing text, the toolbar might surface Bold, Italics, and Underline right away. If you’re working on multiple lines, it could instead display indent and outdent options. The goal is to streamline your workflow so you’re not digging through menus for the right tool.
This feature is already live for testers running iOS 26 Beta 5. If it survives to the public release – which looks very likely – expect to see it rolled out widely when the stable version of iOS 26 drops next month.