Apple's Journal app now available to try in iOS 17.2 public beta
Apple's Journal app is almost ready. Announced at WWDC earlier this year, Journal does what it says on the cover. It's a journaling or diary app that lets you make a note of life's big events, pen personal thoughts, write about your feels, and more.
The app is now available to try on the public beta of iOS 17.2 and will likely be made available during the proper release of iOS 17.2.
I was recently given a demo of the app and it looks basic and easy to use. Like any other app of its type, Journal lets you create an entry with photos, videos, or even a voice memo. If you've been to somewhere special, you can even log location data with your entries.
If you feel stuck and don't know how to start, the app offers prompts to help you start with questions like, "Think about something that needs to change and why this change is important to you" or "Do you enjoy daydreaming? What do you learn about yourself?"
Where the Journal app stands out is that it can use on-device machine learning (for privacy) to create suggestions on what to write based on the photos and videos you've taken, where you've been, the workouts that you've completed, and more. Apple calls this Moments and what's interesting here is that they'll be making the API for this feature available to third-party journaling apps too.
Journal looks like it could be really useful to users who might want to try out journaling. After all, keeping a journal is said to provide benefits to your mental health. However, it is lacking some features and that's where third-party journal apps like Day One come in.
One feature that's notably missing is support on other platforms. As of now, the Journal app is only available on your iPhone. This makes sense since your phone is likely with you all the time and is your most personal device, but writing entries on a phone (long ones, particularly) isn't the easiest. Hopefully, Apple will bring the app to iPads and Macs.
If you are keen to try Journal, you'll need to install the iOS 17.2 beta public. If this is new to you, go to the Apple Beta Software Program to register.
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