iPhone and iPad Journals

Journal App Review: Roller Journal for iPhone

Posted on May 2, 2013 | 0 comments

Keeping a journal is similar to exercise. Some people start it out strong; going to the gym every day, doing the necessary warm-ups and buying the required items but there will come a point where the thrill and excitement fizzles up. For people who want to keep a journal, the problem is not in the determination or the time. Sometimes, we just don’t know what to write about. We face an empty piece of paper with a pen at hand just letting precious time pass by. Then we give up.

If you are one of the many people who encounter such problems then you don’t have to worry anymore. With the iOS app named Roller Journal, you will never have to worry about not knowing what to write anymore.

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5 Ways To Start A Digital Journal For Free

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 | 0 comments

Not only does keeping a journal on your favorite device have incredible benefits over the alternative, but it is usually very affordable as well. While I typically encourage the serious digital journaler to eventually pay for a premium service, free alternatives are a great choice if you are just getting started. To help you out I have compiled a list of the top 5 free ways you can get started on your digital journaling adventure for free.

Does Keeping a Digital Journal Mean No More Hand Written Entries?

Posted on Apr 4, 2013 | 0 comments

As I speak to you through email and social media, however, there is one aspect of hand-written journals that many of you aren’t willing to fully let go of- the hand-written part. For some reasons there is a perception out there that there are fewer benefits of journaling via your fingers on a keyboard than using your wrist with a pen. I’m not sure where this came from but I’m fairly confident that it is false. I am many times more distracted writing by hand than when I type because it flows so much better.

But do you know what? This concern is essentially irrelevant because of one important fact:

Journal App Review: Capture 365 for iPad/iPhone (Mac Version Also Available)

Posted on Mar 30, 2013 | 0 comments

Looking for that perfect journal app is just like shopping for any other item. Imagine wanting to buy a new desk and going to an IKEA store. That certain familiar feeling is there; you know what you want and you know you want it now. The only problem is that all of a sudden, all desks seem to look alike. That vision of the perfect desk is gone. What’s left is a room full of possible purchases that leave you catatonic at the very least.

Journal apps tend to be alike in some ways, especially if you have seen as many as I have. The general purpose of being able to help you create daily journals is there but with the number of choices available to you – you end up confused. Are all journal apps created equal?

Sockii’s Capture 365 begs to differ. In a sea of journal and diary apps, Capture 365 seems to go against the tide and forces us to believe that there is such a thing called the “chosen one” among the many.
Although first impressions are nice, it isn’t extremely intuitive and there is no tutorial or introduction video to help you grasp the basics. For example, adding a new entry on a specific date requires you do at least 2 things (including selecting dates and clicking a button). Two buttons might not be much but I bet this is much confusing than the usual + button.

This Free Recommendation Website Is Probably The Best Thing Easy Journaling Has Ever Done

Posted on Mar 19, 2013 | 2 comments

What Is Your Best Journal App?

Visitors come to Easy Journaling for a variety of reasons but the most popular is to find the best journal app for their favorite device. Just type “best android diary” or “best iPhone journal” into any Google search bar and you will probably be directed to this website.

As nice as the ‘best journal app‘ posts are that you will find here, they aren’t really that helpful because each user has such different criteria. The top 5 apps for Jack won’t be the same for Jane. Everyone approaches digital journaling differently and a simple list cannot appropriately serve unique individuals.

I have tried as often as possible to give personal journal app recommendations to those who have bothered to ask. And as much as I enjoy the challenge of taking the differing criteria and using several years of app research to give the best journaling solution, the Easy Journaling community is getting to the point where it isn’t practical to serve everyone in this manner.

There was a solution to this problem all along but it took me over a year to finally pull the trigger and automate my journal recommendation process. Thanks to a paid developer, an online researcher and a skilled friend, we have built an entire journal app recommendation tool from scratch and I am excited to announce that it is now available… and it is free. It will always be free.

Finding the Right Digital Journal for Beginners- Vince’s Journey

Posted on Feb 7, 2013 | 0 comments

Vince Doss recently reached out to me asking a few questions and explaining his journey attempting to find the right digital journal in his busy life. I was inspired and educated by his story enough that I encouraged him to write it out for all of you to enjoy as well. As you will soon see, Vince is on the right track and his careful selection process will increase his chances of an enjoyable and fulfilling journaling experience.

Take it away Vince!

I am an IT support professional and I have just taken up journaling in the past month. I set out to find a tool to help me gather my thoughts, a compensatory strategy for ADD. I enter repair tickets (only PC based); do network management and email from my PC laptop. I also have an iPad (but find typing on it is not fun with/without stylus) and an iPhone5. I was looking for something to quickly enter notes from the time I wake and throughout the day to both chronicle my day’s activities, for ticket entry later if needed, as well as my goals, thoughts and musings. After trying for a couple weeks I think the iPhone has won out as the primary input platform. I first stumbled upon EJ when searching for “the best journaling apps” and found Sam’s eBooks and PDFs. These were pivotal in helping me arrive at a few conclusions.

The Top 5 iPad Journals/Diaries

Posted on Jan 3, 2013 | 0 comments

If you are looking for the perfect journal to compliment your slick new iPad, you have come to the right place. That’s right, these are the top 5 iPad journals and diaries to keep your entries and make them beautiful.

So what would you want in an journaling app for the iPad? Many of them have beautiful interfaces and are loaded with features like syncing with other services like Dropbox, social media check ins, and maps just to name a few. Others have interfaces that focus solely on the task at hand- getting your thoughts down in writing and nothing more.

The Top 5 iPad Journals and Diary Apps

(in no particular order)

Day One

Everyday Timeline Is Vying To Become The Best iPhone Journal

Posted on Dec 7, 2012 | 3 comments

A while back I wrote a post on a new iPhone application called Everyday.me and how it was the latest in a movement to automate your personal journal. Well, apparently Everyday.me was an early build and now the full product is out and called Everyday Timeline. This cute application has now become a force in the iOS journal space and with a few m

ore improvements could become one of my top recommendations.

Everyday Timeline now includes many of the features that I consider important or even essential such as:

• Exporting - you can now export and backup your journal to Dropbox and Evernote weekly automatically. You can also print out the PDF for your own purpose.
• Sharing - you can also explicitly share specific entries with others via email or Facebook.
• Email posting - you can add entries by emailing anything to post@everyday.me. Attachments work also.
• Location checkins - You can record your own private location/checkins, and/or import them from Foursquare.

Meernotes Just Took It To The Next Level!

Posted on Sep 28, 2012 | 0 comments

You can tell when I like an app because you will not only see an initial review, but also road tests and updates when they get new features. Penzu, LDS Journal and Wonderful Days are all on this short list.

Also on this list (see here and here) is one of my all time favorites, Meernotes by Fabulously Retro. Never has an iPhone application felt so much like a real notebook as this little treasure. It is as beautiful as it is functional and I’ve continually found uses for it, even though it isn’t my personal daily journal.

Now, however, Fabulously Retro has taken the game to a whole new level with the recent 2.0 release. Now it is not only more attractive and easy to use (I love page turning animations!), but it also now has some of those must-have features such as pictures and passwords. Meernotes has gone from a novelty that was fun to use to a full-fledged journaling application capable of competing with the big dogs like Day One and Momento.

Everyday.me and the Automated Journaling Movement

Posted on Aug 17, 2012 | 0 comments

What if I told you that you could journal without even journaling? That you could go to bed at night knowing that your entries had been written, complete with pictures?

This may sound far off, but with a new app called Everyday.me, it is closer that you imagine. The thing that gets me even more excited is that I have been thinking about taking journaling in this direction recently- a direction I call the automated journal.

This new way of journaling hinges on the fact that in this day and age we are constantly leaving notes and pieces of our lives. Tweets, Facebook posts, emails, Instagram pics… and so on. We are leaving more of this personal information out there, usually for sharing with our friends and family, but why not collect it for personal use as well? What if we could collect this digital footprint and store it privately?

Journalized For The iPhone Is Nice But Not Quite There

Posted on Aug 3, 2012 | 0 comments

In a world of increasingly more, less often stands out and becomes desirable. Similarly, if you remove clutter and distractions from and application, it becomes easier to focus on the purpose of the software.

Such is the case with the new Journalized for the iPhone. It achieves bare minimum in an elegant way without offering (or, as is often the case, forcing) more than you need. Tap the plus button to create and entry and away you go. Insert text as well as pictures or videos from your device and your entry is complete. Entries are displayed in a feed in reverse chronological and a calendar is also available to see what days you created entries.

Journal App Review: Day One- Among The Best Journal/Diary Apps Available

Posted on Jul 5, 2012 | 5 comments

Among journal apps, there are features that matter and features that don’t. Of course it would be absolutely awesome (and entirely possible) to have pretty much all of the features from insignificant to vital, but I am yet to find that app. So instead it is important to find the features that are most important to us and make sure the journal we choose has most of them.

Day One has most of them, for me anyways. And the ones that aren’t available are on tap for inclusion in future releases. The proactive mindset that the developer Bloom Built has makes me feel more comfortable about Day One being “future proof” (or at least “future resistant”).

Instead of the more classic feel that Momento and Molenotes opt for, Day One chooses a clean and modern look. Styling is consistent and the different elements match well. Of course there isn’t an option to change the theme if you are into that (though the most recent update brought different font sizes), but the light blue throughout stays with the branding. Oh, and the icon is one of the best.

Morpheus Dreams Gives a Convincing Argument That They Are the Best Dream Journal for the iPhone

Posted on Jun 9, 2012 | 1 comment

Dream journals aren’t a new concept, but they have arguably grown in popularity with smartphones and app stores. For those unfamiliar, a dream journal allows you to record your dreams (hopefully as soon as you wake up) and they help you not only record them, but interpret them as well. I’ve spotlighted one before, and now now the creators of Morpheus Dreams have come to me with this compelling argument as well as a chart outlining how it compares with competition in the app store. 

Note that the following information is from the developer. As always, I encourage you to do additional research if you are interested in purchasing any journal apps. Fortunately, Morpheus Dreams is only $1.99, so if you do want to give it a try you can do so with minimal risk. That being said, the app looks good to me (sporting several features above and beyond) and I have been pleasantly surprised with using dream journals in the past. Morpheus Dreams was designed to give users all the tools to easily build a dream journal, whilst exploring the meaning of the dreams. There are many Dream apps out there, but Morpheus Dreams is the first App to offer a comprehensive set of features from journal entry – you type complete journals, not just key words – to an integrated dictionary, interpretation tools, Share, Sync and Export functions, and much much more.

Journal App Review: MY Wonderful Days for iPhone and iPad

Posted on Apr 14, 2012 | 7 comments

With an app store in the hundreds of thousands, it can be hard to find original names for your apps that still are catchy and accurate. My Wonderful Days had a tough run of luck when, almost a year ago, a new app burst onto the scene with a nearly identical name: Wonderful Days. If this sounds familiar, it may be because I just wrote a post blasting Wonderful Days for being unresponsive to my concern.

Strike two against Wonderful Days.

But back to MY Wonderful Days (which is a COMPLETELY different app by a COMPLETELY different developer). I am actually excited about this fun little application that brings a bunch of the must have features and even throws in a few surprises.

Top 5 Free iPad Journals/Diaries

Posted on Mar 10, 2012 | 0 comments

Looking for the best journal app for you? Try our free journal recommendation tool!

The iPad continues to grow in popularity as the apps available increase every day. If you have ever wanted to turn your iPad into your own personal journal, you are not alone. There are dozens of great apps available, and fortunately, they don’t have to break the bank to get started.

In fact, if you can handle the occasional iAds or missing functionality, there are actually some decent journals for the iPad that are absolutely free. This is the top 5 along with important information. If you have tried any of these, please sound off in the comments below describing your own personal experience.

Note that these descriptions are from the developer and I have not personally tested every one of these. Clicking the title of the app will take you to the apps page on iTunes.