2y ago

Apple's Journal App for the iPhone Truly Surprised Me After a Month

www.cnet.com

Commentary: I don't use Journal every night, but even opening the app and looking back helps put time into perspective.

16 comments

No export! This should raise all the red flags.
- Hey, they did say it stays on ur iPhone.../Sheesh
  Edit: I'm pleasantly surprised by the Privacy Nutrition Label. Touché, Apple, perhaps there's hope for them yet ;)
- Yes I really wanted that and import.
  But what I saw of it made me use it more than my dedicated journal app that has more features that I want. Now that they updated for the SDK let me see how they are doing over the next couple of weeks.
  
  You’re current journal app has more features that you want, yet you use the new native Apple one more?
- Export to what? Why? Jesus like pick some random, arbitrary feature to spread FUD 🤷‍♂️
  
  Export to cleartext files or markdowns, so you can keep your data if you ever decide to delete your icloud account, or get an android phone, etc.
  
  Can't believe this has to be explained, but a Journal is almost by definition something that you want to keep forever. Do you want to lock yourself into Apple devices forever? Have you ever heard of Nokia?
I've been journalling on Day One since February 2013. When I heard about Apple's Journal I wasn't impressed because of lack of export features and the lack of macOS support. I write long text and don't want to bother with a virtual keyboard. But I'm beginning to think that the whole point of the app is not to write some memoirs but simply to help remembering. In my opinion that's why the app lacks search and export features. Because it's not meant to be searched in or shared. It is not a note taking app. It is meant to act on your brain.
In my almost 11 years of journalling, I've never searched or shared anything, and I couldn't tell what I wrote last week. But very, very often I remember feeling something and writing about it years later. And this is exactly when the whole process becomes useful, when you can rely on how you analyzed a situation rather than feel the discomfort of it.
Anyone should have a diary.
- Yes, my entries in the journal app is much less thought out and structured than what I normally do for my diary entries.
  I just wonder how easy it will be to find an entry if you want to look back after 1000s of entries. But I guess the app will also still grow with us.
- Been using Day One since February 2013. In the beginning there was a single Journal where you could put a single Picture and start writing in Markdown. They changed their economic strategy to subscription, added multiple journal, multiple pictures... videos, audio etc. removed markdown features I was using a lot (like footnotes) and the ability to see the markup for easy editing. They're basically EverNote now. They completely lost their original idea and what made Day One such a great journalling app. I wish I could easily switch to another one. I did it once with a more agnostic markdown note-taking app (iA Writer) but ultimately came back to Day One. I even developed one of my own as a PWA...
  Day One is a totally different thing now. We don't need another full-featured note-taking app. We need something different and simpler.
  SN: I'm also a GTD enthusiast who spent tons of money in apps like OmniFocus or Things or Agenda. I ditched everything to rely only on Reminders and Notes and have never been more efficient.

16 comments