Notepad is losing its focus

I am an active user of Windows Notepad. I utilize it to make rough meeting notes, store hints for my passwords, and save data that I may need regularly; for example, the hex or RGB values of a custom color scheme in my Power BI reports. I like how quickly the application loads up and lets you get directly into your flow without any fancy splash screens, animations, or suggestions for templates. However, I think that the software has been losing its purpose and vision over the past few years.

It all started back in 2021 when details about a Notepad redesign for Windows 11 leaked with Fluent Design and minimalist menus. This was followed by the rollout of a dark theme and leaks about another UX change, that being a tabbed interface. Then came 2023 and we received automatic save states, Edit in Notepad, and a character counter. Most of these changes were welcomed since Notepad had been in such a dormant state for such a long time from a development perspective.

However, I would argue that this was the turning point as likely enthralled by the positive feedback it was receiving, Microsoft decided to inject dreaded AI capabilities into Notepad as well. The timing was unfortunate, given that Notepad development had finally been reactivated and AI trends were on the rise too.

In January 2024, AI writing assistance features were spotted by internet sleuths, and next month, Insiders could leverage Explain with Copilot directly in Notepad. Soon after, Microsoft also introduced a spellchecker. In the same week, my fellow Neowin Editor Taras Buria published a guide explaining how to restore the old version of Notepad, without all the latest bells and whistles. It became clear that not everyone wants new features being added to their simple note-taking app all the time, especially AI capabilities. Since then, Notepad has received several new capabilities, including AI-powered Rewrite, text summarization, text formatting, and text generation.

Notepad has evolved quite a bit in the past few years, for better or for worse. I do think it's losing its original vision though. Previously, we had Notepad for those quick note-taking scenarios, WordPad for additional customization options, and Microsoft Word and OneNote offering the full-fledged text editing experience for those with Office or Microsoft 365 licenses. Now, WordPad is dead, and the capabilities between Notepad, Word, and OneNote are muddled to the point that the lines between them are being blurred.

Notepad is becoming more than a simple note-taking app, it's competing with other Microsoft apps in the area of AI-powered text modification. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but it also means that it wouldn't be surprising to see the tech company introduce even more AI features (bloat) in the app just because AI and Copilot integration across all its products is a part of its latest strategy.

What used to be a tool to just quickly launch and take notes is now yet another advertising surface for Copilot. Extra capabilities in an application isn't a bad thing, but it can detract from the core purpose of the software, while also opening the door to distasteful forms of advertising that we know Microsoft is capable of. An early indicator of this is the fact that AI-powered text generation requires a paid Copilot Pro or Microsoft 365 license with AI credits.

Perhaps it would have been better to keep things mostly as they were:

• Notepad for hassle-free note-taking, while borrowing basic text formatting capabilities from WordPad
• Microsoft Word / OneNote for those with Office or Microsoft 365 licenses and subscriptions
• Microsoft Word Online for those who don't want to pay for a subscription

In the above scenario, Copilot capabilities would be offered to the latter two categories only and Notepad would be restricted to its original purpose. But of course, this is me talking from a user standpoint. From the business perspective held by Microsoft, it only makes sense to inject Copilot into as many products as possible, which is rather unfortunate. One can only hope that Notepad doesn't devolve solely into an ad platform for Copilot.