When the Apple Journal app was released about six weeks ago, I thought it might be worth trying. Here is my brief take on it.
Historically, I’m not a journal keeper and I suppose this blog is as close as I’ve ever got but a journal is more personal. I recall that when I was made redundant almost eight years ago, we were given tips on how to keep a perspective on life as we went through a major change, journalling was one of the suggestions I ignored. Maybe now is the time to start?
The app runs only on the iPhone and is not currently supported on the Mac or iPad ranges. It takes advantage of photos, location services and other parts of the Apple ecosystem to make journalling suggestions. These suggestions are pretty sensible so that is where I started.
With no keyboard and only the phone screen to use, I found my journal entries to be pretty brief, more of a diary summary than a journal and probably nothing much to be worth looking back at in the future which is surely a key objective of journalling. The app is easy to use and the resulting journal is easy to read.
In my opinion, the inability to add text from an iPad or a Mac is a deal breaker. I do realise that there is good technical justification for not providing full functionality on a static device like a Mac, but is this true for an iPad? I just can’t be bothered to make detailed entries on my small iPhone SE and see little long-term value in 'summary entries'. Being unable to view or search a journal on a larger screen once it has grown significantly is also a big downer.
I’ll not be using this app for the time being, maybe the ability to edit text and read the journal on other larger devices would change my mind if it were to be introduced in the future. Having said that, once you have years of history in the journal you are tied to an iPhone for life, presumably one of the main objectives of Apple.
Sorry Apple, it is a NO from me.
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