Apple’s Journal app is no Day One killer and leaves much to be desired

By Dylan Crismale

Last updated 29 December 2023

As a self-professed productivity obsessive and a person who is "mindfulness-curious", I have often found myself pulled in different directions when it comes to journaling. If I do keep a journal is it better to do it old school? Or is a digital journal better? I'm also well-cemented in the Apple ecosystem at this point. So I had high hopes for giving the company's new Journal app ago when it was finally released this month in iOS 17.2.

I recall many on the internet felt a sense of outrage when Apple unveiled it earlier this year. There was talk of "Sherlocking" - a term used to describe when Apple brings out its own feature that makes a third-party app or tool obsolete. Here was a big developer once again taking on successful yet much smaller apps in this space like Day One or 5 Minute Journal by rolling out something natively on the platform. Well, they need not have feared because Apple’s Journal app is drastically underwhelming.

Automated mindfulness

Apple's Journal app lets you write about your day, encourages you to schedule a time for journalling to form a habit and promises complete privacy secured by FaceID. It's fairly standard stuff but Apple's fresh take is that its Journal app provides writing prompts directly based on data collected by your phone. This includes places you frequent, photos you've taken and the music and podcasts you've listened to - if you're using Apple's other apps. Journal will even pull together suggestions based on contacts you've messaged, called or FaceTimed.

Occasionally, when multiple things pull together the resulting "Moments" can be exciting. They tell a story of who, what, where you were and leave the why and how for you to fill in with your journal entry. More often though I found they're usually just cherry-picked highlights from my camera roll. Lots of them are drawn from and are similar to "Memories" from the Photos app. I don't know about you but I usually quickly swipe those notifications away.

Looking under the recent tab for something to write about I was struck by how bare my life seemed between a nearly endless amount of workouts. All of the recent fun stuff I'd been up to I had seemingly already used as a writing prompt. I was even treated to a digital jumpscare in the form of a close-up of a patch of skin I had been looking at. A great timely reminder that I wanted to book in to see a dermatologist, but not perhaps something worth writing about.

There are some useful prompts lurking about too such as “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received recently?” or “Describe the best part of your week". However, they're fairly generic. Your mileage may vary as to how thought-provoking you find them.

Curiously too, in a move that should dissuade the Sherlocking allegations Apple has made the Journaling Suggestions API available to other developers. This means they can and already have been able to include them within their own apps.

A confusingly unsavvy digital experience

Something like Moments is no doubt only going to get better with time. But there's no excuse for shoddy workmanship in how the writing experience functions. On this front, Apple seems to have forgotten why people journal digitally in the first place.

The app is a minimalist experience which is fine, I can see why you wouldn't want things to get too busy when trying to promote a place for quiet reflection. But it's lacking some of the many affordances you'd expect - there's no search function, no system for tagging and no way to order your journal except by bookmarked entries or entries with a media type.

There are no rich text formatting options. No headings, not even an option for bolding. No option for drawings. This does promote a stream-of-consciousness style but it's a strange omission especially when the Notes app supports all of these things - even tagging now too. Even with the traditional pen, paper and ink method you’re free to add emphasis through underlining, headings, and doodling within the margins. Apps like Day One offer different heading sizes as well as the option for indentation, lists and formats to better highlight quotes.

It's also iOS only so far. It remains to be seen if a Mac version comes out in the future.

A missed opportunity

Apple clearly cares about and values health as an opportunity to keep its customers like me hooked. It also carefully collects a lot of data on us and that's where the Journal app feels like it didn't live up to its potential.

One of the hidden gems I found when iOS 17 first launched was the “State of Mind” feature within the Health app. It lets you capture your emotional state like you would your heart rate and body measurements. Throughout or at the end of the day you can record emotions using a slider that ranges from very unpleasant to very pleasant.

You then connect descriptive words to these emotions and then assign them to contexts. For example something to the effect of "I was feeling very pleasant in a confident manner because of how I've been working on self-care". As you compile more emotion check-ins a graphs feature comes in handy. It lets you see your emotions alongside your positive and negative associations and against your exercise, meditation, sleep and time in the daylight.

However, what's missing here is the opportunity to add deeper reflection. Unless you say, had a journal function? It seems like a natural bridge where Apple could say "here's all this health data we're collecting on you, how it affects your mood, have any thoughts about that?" But alas, no instead here's a prompt to write about that 5km walk you did last Tuesday.

High hopes

I'm very much hoping that my experience with the Journal app is a case of expecting too much, too soon. In its current form, it feels like Apple is just dipping its toes in the water into the mindfulness space - but there's potential to dive right in and make it even more powerful.

It's ideal for the similarly curious who may want to start journalling and don't know where to begin - your iPhone that's always at hand is a great place to start. However, anyone who is already a prolific deep thinker or someone who has been dipping in and out for a while already has several better options to choose from.

In an already crowded market, Apple's Journal feels too inflexible, too specific and perhaps a little too bland for my liking. Oh well. Dear diary, I'm coming back to you.