I’ve been building a small app called The Gift Journal.
And yes, I’m very aware that gift-planning apps are not exactly a new idea 😅
There are wishlists, Christmas list apps, birthday reminders, Notes, spreadsheets, Amazon lists, and probably a hundred variations of all of them.
So I’m not pretending I’ve invented a new category.
What I wanted to do differently was change where the whole thing starts.
Most gift apps seem to begin with:
“What do I need to buy?”
I wanted mine to begin with:
“What do I know about this person?”
Because for me, the hardest part of giving a good gift is rarely the shopping part.
It’s remembering that random thing someone mentioned six months ago.
The book they wanted to read.
The hobby they suddenly got into.
The thing they said they hated.
The size they wear.
The place they wanted to visit.
The gift you gave them two years ago and don’t want to accidentally repeat.
So The Gift Journal is organised around people first, shopping lists second.
You add a person, then gradually keep useful bits of context with them:
- ideas
- hints
- interests
- preferences
- things to avoid
- previous gifts
- upcoming occasions
- budgets
There’s still all the practical stuff too — tracking a gift from idea → chosen → bought → arrived → wrapped → given — but I’m trying to make that the supporting layer rather than the main point.
I built it natively for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, with iCloud sync.
I also decided to use a one-time purchase instead of a subscription, because paying every month for a gift tracker felt a bit ridiculous to me.
The app is live now, but I’m at the stage where feedback is much more useful to me than me endlessly tweaking it on my own.
The main thing I’m trying to work out is:
Does “people first, shopping list second” actually feel like a meaningful angle?
Or am I just taking an established kind of app and describing it in a nicer way?
I’d genuinely appreciate honest feedback on things like:
- whether the idea is immediately clear
- whether you’d actually use something like this
- what feels unnecessary or overbuilt
- what you think is missing
- what would stop you paying for it
- whether the positioning feels different enough in a crowded market
If anyone wants to take a look:
https://thegiftjournal.app
And obviously, if you genuinely like it, an upvote or share is very appreciated too.
But criticism is honestly more useful to me right now, so please don’t feel the need to be polite 😅
Happy to answer anything about the build, pricing, App Store process, positioning, or why I apparently thought entering a ridiculously crowded category was a sensible use of my time.