The iPhone 5 News Blog

Apple is rumored to be adding bullets, links, colored fonts, and other word processor-inspired features to Notes, perhaps in a bid to make the iPhone and iPad even more business savvy.

The more we learn about the new bells and whistles that iOS 5.1 explorers are uncovering ahead of its official release — which is now rumored to take place sometime between March 7th and 9th — the more is seems apparent that 5.1 is much more than a nominal refresh of iOS 5. After already reporting on the battery life improvements, a new camera button on the lock screen, and expanded multi-language support for Siri, it now appears that Notes will be getting a serious upgrade as well.

According to Techno Buffalo, “the Notes app will soon gain the ability to include bulleted lists, links, underlined text and new font colors.”

While it’s easy to assume that this is little more than a novel upgrade of the Notes app in iOS 5, one could assume that Apple has the business user in mind with an improvement like this. With the addition of bullets, italics, bold, and other Word-like elements, presentation notes or ideas can be easily sketched on one of Apple’s mobile gadgets — particularly the iPad.

On February 16th, we suggested that the robust nature of iOS 5.1 could be significant enough to persuade Cupertino use it for both the iPad 3 and iPhone 5, opting to hold off on an iOS 6 release at this year’s WWDC in June. It would be the first time that Apple would fail to offer a new iOS iteration since iOS’s inception. but given all of the new features we’re hearing about, 2012 could be the year that Apple breaks with its iOS traditions.

By Michael Nace