Apple Journal Impressions – One Month Later

I made a forum post last month about my early impressions of Apple Journal on iOS. I thought I would follow up with an updated impression today.

My impressions have not changed much. I think it is good, if basic, writing tool with some thoughtful AI-powered journal suggestions to help you document what is important to you. My previous journaling attempts were never solutions that worked out for me. The jury is still out on my long term use of Apple Journal but the journal suggestions framework does make this a more appealing product to me the longer I use it.

I found myself adding Journal to my routine throughout December but lapsed right around the holidays due to the insanity and chaos that is Christmas. I came back at it after the New Year and this is where Journal started to prove its worth to me. Yes, I missed documenting the important moments of the holidays but my iPhone did not. Journal’s suggestions had it all there waiting for me. Map pinpoints and photo groups of the time I missed journaling popped up and with a tap I was able to create new journal entries. There was a helpful prompt (ex: “Think of something that made this moment special to you”) and I could even set the entry timestamp to be the day the moment happened, not the day I got around to entering it.

That is a small, but helpful, feature that I did not appreciate at first. I enjoyed the holidays without feeling the pressure of having to journal it in the moment. This was my downfall all too often. I would put off journaling an important moment until later and forgot about it. Journal suggestions is a great way to nudge me to reflect later.

Dan Moren of Six Colors wrote about Apple Journal and referred to it as a social network for one person. I think this is a perfect description of what Journal feels like. It could act as a vessel for writing lengthy entries if you wanted but feels better suited for documenting your life in the way people use X, Instagram, Facebook, etc. The difference is that this one invites you to be more personal because you aren’t publishing it anywhere.

I am going to continue using Apple Journal in ways that make sense to me. Journaling based off the suggestions is something I can get behind and is encouraging for its long term presence in my daily life.