Pen and Paper, Digitally: New iOS Journaling App Rumored for Launch with iOS 17

There was an interesting report from 9to5 Mac last week where they shared a story from The Wall Street Journal that says Apple will be releasing a native journaling app for the iPhone in the next release of iOS. The rumors include on-device integration with location information, physical activity, and other pertinent data to prompt the user to create relevant entries. In addition, there's talk of this potentially Sherlocking* the popular journaling app Day One.

When Apple creates apps that offer an alternative to what third-party developers are doing, they typically don't go as deep in terms of the specific feature set as the app developers do. An example is the Reminders app, which works for some people and has gotten even more functionality with recent updates. Despite that, there's still a set of users who need something like Todoist or OmniFocus. However, Apple does have the advantage of building the OS and can more easily benefit from deeper integration into system settings, so they can usually do some cool stuff that some third-party app developers may struggle with.

I've been subscribing to Day One for years and like the app. Of course, I'll check out what Apple does, but it's not an instant switch for me. I like the features and security that Day One offers right now.

I think journaling is something everyone should do, and I'd be happy if the rumors turned out to be accurate and Apple added this tool as a native app on the iPhone. I hope that Day One will co-exist successfully with whatever Apple creates, and I suspect they will. Many app developers, especially developers who have been working on their apps for years, have added many features people want, and that helps them differentiate themselves from what Apple does. I hope Day One sticks around and continues building a great feature-rich journaling app. The optimist in me thinks they may even see an increase in users if Apple popularizes journaling and more people explore other apps in the category. We'll have to wait until WWDC in June to know what's happening.

In the meantime, if you are interested in beginning a journaling practice, don't wait. Instead, start today, and use whatever format is most comfortable. Whether it's analog or digital, just get started. I'll write more about journaling in the newsletter this month, and you can click here to join and take a look at a few recent issues as well.

* Sherlocking is the term used when Apple creates an app that functions in the same way as a third-party app.