GoodNotes gains support for Dark Mode, multiple windows, and more

What you need to know

GoodNotes 5.3 adds all-new features .
Dark Mode, multi-window support, and more.
It's a free update for existing users.

GoodNotes has been updated to version 5.3, but that isn't the interesting part. What's really going to pickle your onion is the new support for all of the iPadOS hotness. Yes, the update works on iPhone as well, but iPad is really where all the magic happens.

Like every other app update that's arrived in the last two weeks, GoodNotes now supports Dark Mode. But there are also some special dark paper templates to go along with it, too. Never before has taking notes been so pleasing on the eye.

Dark Mode is table stakes right now, but GoodNotes takes things up a notch by adding support for multiple windows alongside it. Just dragging something to the edge of the iPad's screen opens it into a new window, ready to meet all of your multitasking whims. Those things can be documents, folders, pages from a document view, or even tabs. If you just want to start up with a fresh new instance of GoodNotes, no problem. Drag its icon to the edge of the screen and you're golden.

Carrying on the theme of power user features we have OCR document scanning. Now you can scan documents and have them run through OCR right from the app. Once you're done all of the text is searchable which is a huge deal for research and whatnot.

All of this comes alongside the usual array of bug fixes, but the new features really are where it's at. They all come for free to anyone who already owns GoodNotes 5, with everyone else paying $7.99 to get started. That sounds like a bargain for an app that carries a solid 4.7-star rating in the App Store and continues to go from strength to strength.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.