Dawn vs Marklens

Dawn is the calm, beautiful place to read Markdown on iPhone and iPad. And now, to edit it right where you read. Your AI assistant answers in Markdown: headings, lists, code, tables. On a phone, that usually shows up as a wall of raw symbols. Open it in Dawn and it becomes a page worth reading: clean margins, real hierarchy, a comfortable line length, and type set the way a good book is. And it isn't only AI. Your notes, your READMEs, your documents — any .md file reads beautifully here. EDIT ON THE PAGE • Double-tap any line to start writing exactly there — no separate editor, no raw symbols • Bold, italic, headings, lists, checklists, links, quotes, and code from a slim bar above the keyboard • Add formulas and diagrams, and see them render as you type • Changes save back to the same file in Files or iCloud, front matter and all • If a file changed somewhere else, Dawn asks before anything is overwritten WHAT DAWN RENDERS • Full CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown • Syntax-highlighted code blocks that collapse out of the way • Tables that scroll sideways instead of breaking • Math, written in LaTeX and set with KaTeX • Diagrams, drawn from Mermaid • Task lists, nested quotes, footnotes, and frontmatter — folded into a tidy Properties strip BUILT FOR READING • Pinch to size the text exactly how you like it • Light, dark, and automatic themes • An outline you can open to jump between headings • A slim progress line so you always know where you are • A measured column width that keeps long lines easy on the eyes ON IPAD AND IPHONE DUO • Your library and the page side by side, with the outline beside them when there's room • Keyboard shortcuts for editing and formatting • Open documents in their own windows to read two at once • On iPhone Duo, the library and the page meet at the fold, and your place is kept as you open, fold, or turn it YOUR FILES, YOUR WAY • Open Markdown straight from the Files app or iCloud Drive • Send a web link from Safari and Dawn fetches and renders it • Recent documents group themselves by Today, Yesterday, and This Week • Pin the ones you keep coming back to, and search across names and contents SHARE BEAUTIFULLY Select any passage and share it as plain text, as Markdown, or as a polished image card with syntax highlighting — ready for Messages, X, or anywhere else. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no sign-in, no tracking. Your files stay on your device, and nothing you read or write is sent anywhere. Everything renders on-device, so Dawn works with or without a connection. Requires iOS 17 or later on iPhone, or iPadOS 17 or later on iPad.

Marklens is a fast, native Markdown viewer for macOS, iPadOS, and iPhone. Open any .md file with a click and see it rendered immediately — beautiful typography, light and dark themes, syntax-highlighted code, and Mermaid diagrams. No editor, no library, no friction. HIGHLIGHTS • Instant render — every .md opens in a clean, focused window • 30+ language syntax highlighting via highlight.js, bundled offline • Mermaid 11 diagrams — flowcharts, sequence, state, xy-charts and more • GitHub-Flavored Markdown — tables, task lists, footnotes, strikethrough • Light and dark theme matching the system appearance • Quick Look on macOS — press Space on any .md in Finder for a rendered preview • Export to PDF on every platform • Pinch-to-zoom on iPadOS and iPhone, ⌘+ / ⌘− / ⌘0 on macOS • Open files via drag-and-drop, the Share Sheet, or the Files app MADE FOR READING Marklens doesn't try to be a notes app or a knowledge base. It opens a file, renders it perfectly, and gets out of the way. If you write Markdown in another tool — VS Code, Obsidian, GitHub, your favorite text editor — Marklens is the viewer you reach for to look at the result. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Marklens collects nothing. No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reports, no network requests. Every rendering asset — Mermaid, highlight.js, fonts — ships inside the app. Read the full privacy policy at https://donald-jackson.github.io/marklens/privacy/ OPEN SOURCE Marklens is MIT-licensed and developed in the open. Source, issues, and contribution guide live at https://github.com/donald-jackson/marklens.