Yeah, I have never gotten one pertaining to health and I’ve been using this app since December 17th. I’m not counting things I recorded by Fitness app as health, although I understand that Fitness app does store health days in Health app.
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Apple's Journal App
- Thread starter FireFish
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This is such a poor take and read of the situation.
I have no issue whatsoever with people not liking a particular Apple offering. E.g., I don’t like Calendar much (and use Fantastical).
What I do have a problem with is people poo-pooing an Apple offering as not sufficiently sophisticated and effete for the technocrati and thus to be shunned. There are Apple software offerings that are good enough for a lot of people. They don’t need to have all the bells and whistles of Day 1 or Fantastical or OmniFocus to be good enough for those who choose to use them.
Just because this product doesn’t do what you want it to do, how you want it to do that doesn’t mean it’s half-baked/ pointless/ broken, as you so inelegantly put it.
I got recommendation when I called my wife the other day.
I even got recommendation when I was out walking listening to podcast with the title of the podcast in the recommendation 😳
Does this app intagrate with spotify too? I’m using spotify and wondering if tracks i played would be seen in recommandations as well?
Not sure but it does to Apple Music obviously.
..but it only recommends what is play on iPhone, not iPad, Mac or HomePod.
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I see people saying this a lot but I can't see a single aspect of pen & notebook that's actually better than electronic format.
Care to elaborate?
Oh that's interesting! My spouse and I hardly ever call each other. We do text each other. None of that activity has shown up yet in Journal app.
Having used the Journal app for even longer now, I think even if Journal app is only to exist on iPhone, it has to be updated in such a way that it can detect the history from Apple Watch and one's iPad -- assuming these are all under the same Apple ID.
On yesterday's run, I started a podcast on my Watch then went running. By the time I got home, I was only 1/2 way through and then continued listening from my phone and finished it there. Somehow, this specific podcast activity is not showing up at all as a recommendation or even as a possibility to link to my journal entry.
That's too bad because for this particular podcast episode, I did have some deep thoughts about a particular segment and I wanted to try to log this in Journal. The run did come up as an recommended activity for journalling though.
I know you were addressing the comment to someone else. However, if you do an internet search, there are lots of posts about some of the advantages of using a pen to paper journal versus electronic. There are advantages to each method/format.
I think it's hard to make a case that there is no single aspect of pen & notebook being better. That might be the case for YOU personally, but I don't think that can be generalized. For example, and of course hypothetically, maybe you have terrible handwriting and cramp up easily when handwriting for long, so a paper journal is a no-go. But for many others, the deliberative effort of putting pen to paper helps with a slower and deeper thinking, for example. That's just one example.
Others also find the aesthetics of pen and paper journalling both appealing and generative in helping to write.
Personally, I've journaled using both paper and eletronic formats. I find doing it by pen to be the most enjoyable and I enjoy browsing through my old journals. However, I find with electronic formats for me, I may sometimes write more, but I don't find browsing through electronic journals to be that interesting at all.
With a paper journal, you just pick up a book and start flipping through.
With an electronic journal, consider that after some time (a decade? or more?) that it may be hard to know what program to use to open the entries, especially if you journal in spurts and have periods of absences.
My current journaling is spread among three platforms: Scrivener, Obsidian, and now Journal app. I recognize and considered that over time, it will be hard to recall where things are and some entries might get lost.
I believe librarians have made the argument that digital print deteriorates quicker, in many ways, than paper print. The cost of keeping digital books, for example, accessible is high compared to its physical counterpart. Technologies ages and becomes extinct which means the digital books once bought may need to be converted (more $ spent) to keep it accessible. And it's not just money; it's also time keeping up with the technological deterioration. Paper really doesn't deteriorate as fast and in many cases can exist for generations!
I recently had an experience with this. About 20 years ago I thought I would try to migrate from Word to Mellel, a word processing tool that promises better multilingual features among other things. At that time, it's multilingual features was actually way better than what Word offered. It was a pain to switch between English, Japanese and Chinese all in the same document and there were encoding errors. Mellel did it just fine. I did a major project on Mellel with hundreds of documents.
Fast forward 20 years later and for totally different reasons I needed to access this Mellel document. I had long since stopped using Mellel though I still own an older version of it. I couldn't open the Mellel document I needed. Mellel had long since been updated many, many times. I was able to grab some text off of it though by forcing Word to open the document; all formatting lost and there were lots of gibberish text. Anyhow, in working with the developer, I was able to finally (after some days) open that document and convert it to Word.
But imagine if Mellel were no longer being made. I believe when I used Mellel I was on the PowerPC platform. Since then, Macs have gone Intel and now M-chip! If Mellel were no longer made, it would be difficult to get that document back.
In an interesting way, what I have found for myself is that electronic journaling helps with getting more entries down but its longevity and accessibility (for me) is highly questionable. Paper journal is much more long lasting, more accessible, doesn't deterioriate (that fast), but I'm not always able to get down more thoughts.
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It’s probably been said but I don’t have time to read five pages. There’s no option to represent where I stand, which is “I’ve never used it and likely won’t any time soon”.
@msackey Great post 👍 I learnt a lot.
That's not hypothetical. That's me in a nut shell.
Oh wow, I also have Scrivener. Have never imagined using it for Journal. I used Notes for it though before this Journal which is alright but not great experience obviously.
Interesting point. Seems illogical but you made it logical.
LOL. Nice
I am still struggling between going back and forth with paper and electronic.
When the iPad came out with handwriting recognition, I was so excited because I thought, finally I can combine some positive qualities of each format. I do love handwriting, but I also would like them searchable.
iPad does an ok job, but honestly, using it to write long hand for a period of time is a rather frustrating experience. I'm ok using it to write short notes or to mark up a PDF and that kind of thing. But to write thoughtful long journal entries? Aeeeeyaaaa! Nope.
If you'd like to write on iPad you need to have something like paper-like screen film because iPad screen is just too slippery and not natural for writing. It's just too uncomfortable to write for a long time.LOL. Nice
I am still struggling between going back and forth with paper and electronic.
When the iPad came out with handwriting recognition, I was so excited because I thought, finally I can combine some positive qualities of each format. I do love handwriting, but I also would like them searchable.
iPad does an ok job, but honestly, using it to write long hand for a period of time is a rather frustrating experience. I'm ok using it to write short notes or to mark up a PDF and that kind of thing. But to write thoughtful long journal entries? Aeeeeyaaaa! Nope.
Have you checked the Recent tab of recommendation? I have the recent podcast I just listened to.On yesterday's run, I started a podcast on my Watch then went running. By the time I got home, I was only 1/2 way through and then continued listening from my phone and finished it there. Somehow, this specific podcast activity is not showing up at all as a recommendation or even as a possibility to link to my journal entry.
Yes I check the recent tab. Usually, the recent tab is what I go to for recommendations because it’s often upon completion or engagement of an activity that I want to journal about it. Recent tab makes it easier to find.
For people who want to type on iPad or Mac, good news. I just found a workaround.
When we share a note to Journal it doesn’t put a link but a whole note to it. This way one can type on Notes on iPad or Mac and easily put it on Journal.
Sadly it doesn’t retain Notes formatting though but at least Emoji works. 😅
When we share a note to Journal it doesn’t put a link but a whole note to it. This way one can type on Notes on iPad or Mac and easily put it on Journal.
Sadly it doesn’t retain Notes formatting though but at least Emoji works. 😅
I've popped in and out of this app since it launched and I'm increasingly impressed with the recommendations element which continues to expand as more and more potential events are thrown up. I'm also impressed with how quick and easy it is to put together entries.
If I was just starting out with journaling then I think this app would be a decent option, however as a long-term DayOne user with thousands of entries going back decades, I'm not likely to change anytime soon to Journal based on its limited feature set. I will be interested to see how development advances with it however.
I do have one question though regarding storage size. If you want to add a load of images to an entry, does it do some clever backend linking to your photo library, or does it duplicate every image you want included? Not especially relevant for me now, but if in the future I ever wanted to bring across all my legacy entries from DayOne then I'd be concerned about app bloat in size and performance terms. I've looked for how much storage it's using on my iPhone and cannot find it listed for some reason.
If I was just starting out with journaling then I think this app would be a decent option, however as a long-term DayOne user with thousands of entries going back decades, I'm not likely to change anytime soon to Journal based on its limited feature set. I will be interested to see how development advances with it however.
I do have one question though regarding storage size. If you want to add a load of images to an entry, does it do some clever backend linking to your photo library, or does it duplicate every image you want included? Not especially relevant for me now, but if in the future I ever wanted to bring across all my legacy entries from DayOne then I'd be concerned about app bloat in size and performance terms. I've looked for how much storage it's using on my iPhone and cannot find it listed for some reason.
I don’t think it is linking to you photo and media library as I have ten entries so far with photos and the app size according to my phone storage is 152 meg.
Experimenting with putting in some older entries to see how that works. I select a group of pictures in my photo library from this day in 2007 and use the Journal Share Sheet option to create an entry. Easy enough. The entry registers as today but you can select to put them for the date of the photos which is also easy enough.
It gets a bit more complicated if you wish to enter the location for the entry though. The pictures have their accurate location within my Photo Library, but Journal does not seem to read that. Location entries have to be done from scratch and if you were standing in a field when then pics were taken, you cannot manually select a location - the best you can get is an approximation somewhere near it.
It would be nice to have Add Music as an option to your entries too. The suggestions can offer up stuff you might have been listening to in the short time since this app existed, however this does not cover any older entries you might want to make, nor music that you heard at an event that you might like to associate with a particular entry.
It gets a bit more complicated if you wish to enter the location for the entry though. The pictures have their accurate location within my Photo Library, but Journal does not seem to read that. Location entries have to be done from scratch and if you were standing in a field when then pics were taken, you cannot manually select a location - the best you can get is an approximation somewhere near it.
It would be nice to have Add Music as an option to your entries too. The suggestions can offer up stuff you might have been listening to in the short time since this app existed, however this does not cover any older entries you might want to make, nor music that you heard at an event that you might like to associate with a particular entry.
For me, the recommendations are truly lacking. I have been using Journal app for a short while since it was publicly released and I see a number of things where it truly needs improvement.
Even IF Journal were not to be made available on the iPad and/or Mac, it really needs to know about the activities that were done on the iPad, Mac, and Watch in order to provide solid recommendations. For example, when I go out for a run, I also listen to podcasts on my Watch. When I'm done with my activity, Journal (at some point) detects that I have completed a run and provides that as an entry recommendation. However, it wasn't able to detect that a podcast on my Watch was listened to so that doesn't pop up.
I also did some meditation using my iPhone's Insight meditation app as a timer. When completed, this activity automatically logs into Health app noting the time and duration of meditation and my heart rate. However, this activity never comes up as an entry recommendation. Boo.
I also use my iPad's Books app to read. Journal app never recognizes that as an activity. I have even tried to use the Books app on my iPhone as if I were reading. That never comes up as a recommended entry. Boo, again.
Finally, the recent activities that Journal detects need to occur much quicker so they appear as recommended entries. i often find myself having completed an activity (or having taken a picture) and wanted to provide a quick logged comment about it and I can't find the activity. There's a workaround for recently taken photos which is simply to use the built-in option to add a photo to the entry. But, there's no workaround for adding a recent activity until Journal detects it.
Truly, I think to make Journal app even more useful rather than providing incomplete recommendations, it at the very least should know about and detect the various kinds of activities performed on the Watch, iPad, and the rest of the iPhone. And, it needs to detect it much, much faster. Is this on the roadmap for Apple? I wish I knew.
Surprisingly, Journal app does not provide sleep activity as recommended entries. To me, that's a great way to start logging one's dreams or keep track of one's sleep habits. Yet, it doesn't do that.
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I guess I'm just a little curious why there are so many people in the Journal forum who have absolutely no interest in using Apple's Journal app.
lol. While I agree with you, it is good to hear all sides. There is no right answer here. It’s a matter of personal preference.
That said, I do not like the attacks on the app by those who deem it below their exquisite tastes in journaling apps/methods.