Teased back in October, Apple’s Journal app is now available for everyone with an iOS device. As the name suggests, the app is meant to help users keep track of special events in their lives by not just writing, but also capturing photos and videos.
The new Journal app makes use of on-device machine learning to provide users with personalized suggestions to make it easier to write journal entries, as well as customizable notifications to help users develop specific writing habits.
“We are excited to bring the benefits of journaling to more people. Journal makes it easy to preserve rich and powerful memories, and practice gratitude by intelligently curating information that is personal to the user, right from their iPhone. And we’re making it possible for other journaling apps to offer the same personalized suggestions while maintaining the highest level of privacy,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
Each written entry in the Journal app can be enriched with media content like photos, videos, locations, or audio recording to add more context. You’ll also be able to browse through your past entries, bookmark them, or filter for details like photos, workouts, places, and much more.
The suggestions offered by the app are “intelligently curated” and are designed to help users remember to write about an important moment in their lives. According to Apple, users can control the type of content that appears in Suggestions.
As far as privacy goes, Apple says its new Journal app encrypts all entries when iPhone is locked with a passcode. On top of that, users can enable secondary authentication, and lock the Journal app with their device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID.
It’s also important to mention that all Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud to prevent anyone else from accessing them.
