- Apple on Tuesday released an AI-powered journal app for iPhone as part of the iOS 17.2 update.
- When you tap the magic wand icon, it will suggest things to write based on information from your phone, like the music you’ve been listening to and where you’ve been.
Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote speech at the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) held at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California on June 22, 2020.
Brooks Kraft | Apple Inc. | Via Reuters
Apple on Monday released an AI-powered journal app for iPhone as part of the iOS 17.2 update.
The Journal app was first announced in June and uses Apple’s Siri to intelligently suggest topics to write in your journal. For example, it might prompt you to write about the music you were listening to, or document your plans for the day or the workouts you completed.
The Journal app is an example of how Apple continues to invest in new iPhone features each year to protect the iPhone series from competition from Google’s Android and other phone manufacturers.
The iPhone remains Apple’s most important product, with sales of $205 billion in fiscal year 2023, accounting for about 52% of the company’s overall sales. The more Apple adds features that people use every day, such as credit cards, app stores, and iMessage services, the harder it becomes for most users to switch to a competing phone brand or operating system.
The Journal app also highlights Apple’s approach to AI. Apple’s artificial intelligence software, similar to what powers the Journal app, runs on the device itself rather than on servers in the cloud, making it more difficult to use than Google and Microsoft’s internet-based approaches, especially when it comes to sensitive information like health data and travel plans. has privacy advantages compared to Apple also doesn’t highlight AI as a key feature in its marketing, preferring the more academic term “machine learning.”
Apple’s new Journal app uses machine learning to detect important events that you might want to write about.
Screenshot/CNBC
Apple’s Journal app is simple. I’ve been testing it on iOS beta for a month now. When you open the app (you can lock content with Apple’s FaceID), you’ll see a screen with a list of entries and a single “+” button.
You can start a new entry by pressing the plus button. At first, it looks like a standard text input box, like Apple’s Notes. You can type your thoughts, add photos, photos you’ve taken, audio recordings, and drop the location of places you’ve been to Apple Maps. The app automatically timestamps your posts.
After you add a few entries, the app’s front page will fill up with your previous entries, allowing you to browse and edit older posts. You can filter older entries by entries that include photos, activity, or are tagged with a specific location. Diary entries are not published anywhere and are only saved within the individual diary app.
Where you’ll find the magic of machine learning is under the magic wand icon or the Moments Menu. When you tap the magic wand icon, it will suggest things to write based on information from your phone, like the music you’ve been listening to and where you’ve been.
For example, when I hit the Moments tab on Monday, it suggested I write about my recent vacation and showed me things like a map of where I was, the hikes I did while traveling, the music I listened to, and the photos I took while traveling. . i was there. In one entry, I simply recorded an audio file of the waves crashing so I could go back to that moment later. (However, I didn’t realize that I had already fully documented that vacation within my journal app.)
You can also notify users with push notifications in the Journal app. In many cases, a push notification will be sent to you when it detects that you have done an activity that requires reflection. For example, I recently had to hurry to catch a ferry. My walking training was recorded on my watch and I was listening to music at the time. Tracking your workouts is extremely useful for people training for marathons or other athletic achievements.
The Journal app also sent me a notification asking if I wanted to write about the experience. Sometimes an app sends you a notification simply asking you to reflect on your day. Apple also includes several prompts designed to encourage self-reflection: “Record the sounds around you. Write about what you notice.”
The app also has social features, and when it detects that you have contacts nearby, it suggests keeping a diary about your activities with others.
Apple’s Journal app is pretty basic at the moment. Beyond suggestions, you can’t do anything with an old-fashioned paper journal or even a page in Apple’s Notes app. But this proposal and its integration with Apple’s other services sets it apart from more low-tech approaches, where Apple integrates hardware and software to help users collect data on their servers. It emphasizes that it means being able to learn what is important in life.
Apple makes machine learning models that infer what’s important to users available to other apps through programming interfaces. This means other apps could benefit from Apple’s AI.
Apple needs to keep improving the Journal app to find a place in most people’s daily lives. It would be even better if it could automatically fill in more entries, especially ones based on photos and other activity. There is currently no export functionality. This makes the Journal app a more useful place to collect thoughts and ideas that may someday be published.
This journal app is available in iOS 17.2 and can now be downloaded to the latest iPhones. Here’s how to get it:
- Open Settings.
- Tap “General”
- Select “Software Update”.
You might notice a few other new features in iOS 17.2. The update also includes the ability to change default alert sounds, iMessage sticker reactions, and machine learning features that blur photos and other content that may contain nudity that you send.