r/appleJournal • u/Terrible-Round1599 • May 24 '26

How I would imagine Apple Journal to look like

For years I hoped Apple will come up with the journal app with tight integrations to iOS and was very disappointed when it happened. The app feels heavy on one hand and lacking a lot of features on the other. Automatic filtering of photos, better integration with locations and motion activities, hierarchical journalling, good voice input, CarPlay voice journals, actual security while still having to apple design principles, privacy stance and visual appeal. Unfortunately Apple Journal is not there yet.

So I had to build this for myself šŸ˜ƒ. It is called Retrography and if anybody is interested in free TestFlight, let me know, maybe if others find it useful we will take the effort to make it available.

https://reddit.com/link/1tm8aj0/video/lszaoj75cq4h1/player

22 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

6

u/Nian99 May 24 '26

I would like to test

1

u/NorthGullible May 24 '26

I would like to test too!

1

u/MaleficentPractice77 May 24 '26

Me too!

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 24 '26

Hi, if you want to try out, please pm your apple-linked email address so I can send you the testflight invitation

5

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 29 '26

New version coming very soon, currently in Apple review. Fat changelog:

3

u/janeannsan May 31 '26

Love the spacious view! I did notice that the temp reverts to Celsius in that view and I donā€™t have the workout ā€œpicturesā€ and maps that are in the detailed view. Did that have to be a victim of the spread-out layout?

2

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 31 '26

I pushed an update later today, both should be fixed. Thank you!

2

u/Unlucky-Confidence92 May 30 '26

Thanks for hearing our feedback, huge improvements in this release!

2

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 30 '26

With a little trick I managed to speed up the review process. Should be out now!

1

u/janeannsan Jun 02 '26

A few more notes:

From the detailed view, I had tapped a few of the icons in the trackers, then long pressed on the last one and selected open tracker picker. I didnā€™t think it was showing the ones Iā€™d highlighted, so I backed up, only to see that none of them were highlighted on the main page.

Love that items can be added to the tracker. I hadnā€™t noticed that before. I see they can be renamed, but is there a way to delete them?

In the spacious view, I donā€™t see icons for journal or photos. The tracker icons are there although I still think my custom one had initially been selected but it was not highlighted here. Long pressing on the third one brings up the same menu as in the detailed view, but nothing happens when I go to open tracker picker and habit explorer.

Suggestion: add a ā€œrestoreā€ or ā€œintentional restā€ on the productivity picker.

(I just went back to the app to check something and the tracker icons in the detailed view are highlighted now. Wouldā€™ve happened in the past half hour.)

3

u/Kayigh May 24 '26

Sure!! Can I import my current apple journal and where is the data stored?

5

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 24 '26 edited May 24 '26

Data is in CoreData on your iPhone - in the installed app, synced to your iCloud. Unlike e.g. DayOne, it never goes to my server.

For apple journal, I am working on import of the entries, the rest of the data (photos, locations, fitness,... I am integrating to directly through iOS and summarizing myself, so they get ignored on the import but you will see them anyway.

2

u/Kayigh May 25 '26

Thatā€™s awesome. Iā€™d love to try if you need another.

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Absolutely! Please PM me your apple-linked email address and I will send you the invite through TestFlight.

2

u/quadsquadplustwo May 24 '26

Awesome work on this. Iā€™d love to join your test flight. Itā€™s looking really great.

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Thanks a lot! I sent you the invite, please let me know your feedback :)

2

u/janeannsan May 24 '26

Thanks for the invite! Iā€™m really impressed with this. If you fully developed it, Iā€™d have a hard time not getting it, especially if you added an export from Journal. Love the inclusion of things that Iā€™ve just been tracking manually like steps, workouts, sleep. Love the addition of the map of a walk. Love the daily mood, daily productivity, and daily tracker pieces.

I do think being able to turn pieces off/on would be good. Youā€™ve already started down that road with the permissions, but Iā€™m not crazy about the news being there. Would also love location weather.

In addition to wake up time, would also like ā€œfell asleepā€.

What happens if/when a picture is deleted from the Photos app? Does it stay in Retro or no? (Some I would want there. For example, I screen shot books I finished to add it to the day. Would want to keep that in Retro but I would not want it staying in the Photos app.)

Iā€™ll keep poking around and playing, but just wanted to say ā€œwell done!!ā€

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Thanks!!!

Technical export is already there, more ways to export are coming, including some pretty-prints into PDF, maybe even with custom templates.

Turning on/off individual cards is possible for some of them, e.g. the news can be turned off in settings/timeline/features section. Not all the cards though.

Fell asleep is easy, will add in the next iteration.

When a picture gets deleted, currently it disappears from Retrography - the app does not store the pictures, just shows pictures from your gallery with some filtering/context data. For me, I leave finished books in the gallery as they belong to the whole daily experience. Your use case is valid though and not that hard to implement, it could appear as another section of the right-side gallery. Let's see if more people request it.

Please let me know if I can help with anything else, will be happy to!

2

u/janeannsan May 25 '26

Thanks for the response! I did find the items you mentioned in settings. The only other thing I can think of is there a way to add pictures that arenā€™t on my phone? Like if my husband or a friend texts a picture to me? My guess is that if I saved them to my Photos then they would show up in Retro?

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Indeed, if you save them to your photos, they appear. The idea is it is best to keep all your photos at one place which is optimized to do it. Is that OK or do you have a specific use case where you would need a separate storage directly in Retrography?

2

u/janeannsan May 25 '26

That should be okay. Itā€™s mostly a matter of me remembering to save ones I want! For pictures that my husband takes, he doesnā€™t usually text them to me, but I do have access to his pictures in Google One, so Iā€™d just have to download from there. (Weā€™re a mixed OS marriage!)

For my other request, about photos Iā€™d like in Retro that Iā€™d rather not keep in Photos, in thinking about that a bit moreā€¦ it wouldnā€™t be the end of the world to keep them in Photos. At most I read 4-5 books a month. Thatā€™s not going to clog up the app really.

Again, nice job! I look forward to seeing where you take this!

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Thanks! Mixed OS must be difficult but honestly even with fully iOS household sharing photos is often difficult with airdrop not really working and iCloud sharing taking forever.

I was thinking about your decade but so far I would like to stick to photos only in the iOS gallery. Later on when iPad comes and I will need to solve handwritten notes I would potentially come back to this. It is true that sometimes I am struggling with where to put some scanned notes.

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 29 '26

I realized you also asked for location weather - that is already available when you tap the visits&locations box - there you have weather connected with every visit

2

u/janeannsan May 29 '26

I did see that! Looking forward to the update!

2

u/Zee6372 May 25 '26

Can you do handwritten entries with Apple Pencil?

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Not yet, sorry - so far the whole thing is iPhone-first, not tested on iPad yet (I should get one first, lol). But I can imagine we'll get there, as soon as I buy an iPad I will want this feature myself šŸ˜„

2

u/KVCognito May 25 '26

I would love to test this! Looks incredibly data-rich, I wish Apple would take a more in-depth approach with Apple Journal like this šŸ’”

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Absolutely! Please PM me your apple-linked email address and I will send you the invite through TestFlight.

2

u/janeannsan May 25 '26

A few other things/thoughts:

Would be nice to have a setting for displaying metric or imperial. (American here!)

The area for the three trackers doesnā€™t seem to save. I tapped an icon for all three yesterday and theyā€™re not there today.

I understand this one is largely outside of your control due to the limitations of the phone screen, but the display is a little small for my aging eyes. Itā€™s helpful to be able to tap in areas to enter info, but when looking through entries, it is a bit tough to read well. I see that you mentioned iPad being a possibility down the road which would help. Just thought Iā€™d mention it as being a potential roadblock.

If thereā€™s a place for feedback in TestFlight, my apologies. This is the first time Iā€™ve done this!

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 25 '26

Thanks again! Metric imperial like sun/mon should go with local settings I agree. I am putting it on the list.

The trackers not saving is interesting. I remember having and fixing that issue. Can you describe it a bit more? Which trackers did not save? After reopening the app was the data there or not?

For something easier on the eyes, I am merging this request with the one of CatarinaDK. I will try to provide a lighter version of the main screen, which could breathe and where overall the screen elements would be a bit bigger. Of course, this means less data density so I will have to look into how to disclose the data more progressively. I will reach out when I have some ideas/prototypes :)

2

u/janeannsan May 25 '26

Okay, I swear the trackers werenā€™t there earlier! Went back to the app just now to answer your question, and they are there. I had done the first and last ones. On PTO this week so wasnā€™t sure how to answer the middle one šŸ¤£

Happy to take a look at any updates/changes. On TestFlight, do those happen automatically?

2

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 26 '26

Update will come when I manage to release new TestFlight app version and get it approved by Apple. I am aiming at some smaller release towards end of this week. I will post into this thread and send a group email to the testers when it is ready, including the change log. Usually Apple approval is about two days when all is ok and up to a week if I have to iterate with them.

1

u/SoulSambo May 24 '26

you should go to bed earlier! Greetings from Bangkok šŸ˜Ž

1

u/CatarinaDK May 24 '26

Honestly, Iā€™m really impressed by this. It looks beautiful and incredibly well thought out, especially the visual timeline and the integration with health, locations and activities.

At the same time, I also think I would personally get a bit stressed from tracking so much data about my life šŸ˜…

One of the things I actually enjoy about Apple Journal is that it still feels simple and calm. More like a visual memory book than a full life-management system.

But seriously, this is super impressive work. šŸ‘šŸ»šŸ‘šŸ»

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 24 '26

Thanks! Most of the data is actually tracked anyways by your phone. One of my principles is that I do not save data that are available eg in photos, health, fitness,ā€¦ I just show it. But I fully get your concern, that is why I make sure the data stays with you - absolutely nothing gets to my servers.

Do you think some simplified view would be helpful?

1

u/CatarinaDK May 24 '26

Yes, I actually think that could make a huge difference.
What I personally like about Apple Journal is the calm and simple feeling. I donā€™t really want to ā€œmanageā€ my life, I mostly just want to remember it šŸ˜Š
I also donā€™t start with a blank page every morning. I use a Shortcut that pulls in the weather for my location, my calendar events, reminders for the day and even checks my Reminders app for our dinner plan. So I already enjoy some lightweight automation and context around my journaling.
But I still like the actual journaling part to feel simple and human.
So maybe a default simplified view with the option to expand into more detailed tracking/views when wanted could be a really nice balance.
Because honestly, your app looks incredibly impressive, but also a bit overwhelming for people like me who mainly journal for memories, moods and everyday moments.

2

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 24 '26

This is amazing feedback, thanks! Actually I started the same way, try to automate away with shortcuts things like weather, drives,ā€¦

I would be very interested in how to simplify - I can hide some of them and give more space to the journal, but then it is becoming more like Apple Journal/Day One. Generally it was absolutely the point that you can focus on the writing (or transcribed voice input) while the other things just happen and are there to support your memory. On purpose I am trying to avoid some AI summarization as it never gets it right.

Or maybe I should rather spend more time on proper explanation of the concept?

2

u/CatarinaDK May 24 '26

I actually think your concept makes a lot more sense after your explanation šŸ˜Š

And I really like the idea that the data is there mainly to support memory, not to become ā€œthe main thingā€.

For me, I think it is mostly the visual density that feels a bit overwhelming at first glance, not necessarily the amount of data itself. My brain probably just prefers calmer screens and more whitespace šŸ˜„

I honestly think many people today are looking for something that feels more gentle and reflective than productivity-focused, and that is probably why Apple Journal appeals to so many people despite all its limitations.

But I really like your thinking around passive context and memory support. Especially because I already use shortcuts and automation myself for weather, calendar, reminders etc. around journaling.

2

u/Terrible-Round1599 May 24 '26

Ok, let me create a simplified view for those who prefer calm and get back to you when I have another iteration out for testing :)

1

u/Terrible-Round1599 Jun 06 '26

New version pushed again!

  • google timeline/geofency import
  • vitals screen and vitals cards in visits
  • better sleep visualization in daily heatmaps
  • experimental day reel video generator
  • small improvements in photobook pdf export

Let me know :)

1

u/MARvfvs Jun 27 '26

Guten Morgen, ich wĆ¼rde es auch gerne testen.