I have mixed feelings regarding Apple’s new Journal app on iOS 17.2 beta. When it was first announced I thought, Oh, Cool! But I think that “Oh Cool” was not meant for me but more for others. If that makes any sense. When I installed the beta and started playing with it, I kind of liked the app. I enjoyed the user interface, and its simplicity, and the post suggestions are pretty great for quick entries. Other than that, for now, that’s all there is to it, and, I am sure it’ll be fine with most users especially those who are on-and-off journalists or have never done it at all.
Then again, the few things that did awesome for me were the suggestions and quick entries. Things that everybody, very quickly, made sure to point out, “Day One already does (or has) that!”, in some way.
And that is very true.
I have been a Day One user for over 10 years. Day one was my blogging before blogging, or rather before I dared publish. Now, my journal is my personal blog. However, ever since I have been publishing to my blog, wherever it may live, at the time, everything that is published, gets into Day One as an entry via IFTTT. So for as long as I have been publishing, I have been creating entries on Day One.
As you can probably tell, however, my actual interaction with the Day One app is very minimal, or non-existent. This is why Apple’s Journal app felt novel to me, no matter how behind, features-wise, it might be compared to DayOne. Because I was actually using it, intentionally interacting with the thing.
This begs the question. Why would I stop using Day One at this point in time? As of right now, I’ve got over 3,500 entries, 3,571 to be exact. In Apple’s Journal app, I have 5, so far. And this is, I bet, very much due to automation. I don’t have to think about entering something on Day One and I only go into the app if something needs fixing or adding more photos.
Again, it is yet very early for the Journal’s app and who knows eventually get shortcuts and automation support. Or even better, a way to import from DayOne (or wherever you get your journaling).
Then again, it’s 3,571 (3,572 once this one is published) entries, that’s one heck of an import (😅), and I am sure there are people out there with probably double the entries I have.
Guess it’ll be a waiting game for now.
UPDATE
I was looking at the wrong numbers.
Those were the numbers for media entries.
