Can Journalized Push Aside Day One On Your iPhone?
Journalized ($0.99) by GottaBeAndrew brings a gorgeous journaling experience to your iPhone.
One of my favorite things to do lately is to journal. It’s a great way to preserve what happened each day, and also to keep me writing (on a more personal level). But the biggest problem with journaling is that it is mostly associated with those bulky paper journals that you see in stores. Fortunately, there’s been a change since the introduction of digital journaling software for computers and mobile. Today, another one can be added to the growing collection.
Journalized will launch into the Timeline view, where you will be able to scroll through all of your entries. An entry will already be there as an example. You can tap on it to view it, as well as edit it. If you have something to write, just tap on the “+” button to create a new entry.
The screen for editing or creating new entries is downright stunning. Users are able to clearly see the date and time, and you can start writing immediately. Journalized even supports multiple images and video in your entries, so you can snap a new one or import from your Photo Library by tapping on the big blue button at the top. Freshly snapped video and photos can be saved to your Camera Roll when viewed. If you ever need to change the date or time for whatever reason, a tap on the calendar icon will do the trick. Once you’re finished with the entry, just tap on “Done” and it will be added to your timeline. You can easily delete entries by tap-and-holding on them on the main screen.
In the Timeline, your entire entry will be shown, along with thumbnails for media. While this will work wonderfully for short blurbs, it may not be as nice for longer length entries. I think that each entry should only show a certain number of lines for text, and then the thumbnails. If one wants to read through an entry, they can do so by viewing the entry itself.
When you view entries, you can quickly navigate through using the arrow buttons at the top. Images can be viewed in full screen mode and the videos can be played from within the app. The final feature in Journalized is the Calendar. You can access it from the Timeline, and it allows you to view what days you wrote in Journalized (highlighted in blue).
When we get down to it, the app looks superb. I love the detail in the design and interface, even the custom buttons. However, the app is lacking a bit when you consider the other options out there, with the strongest competitor being Day One.
As of now, there is no way to sync your data, though the developer has told me that iCloud is a big priority. But still, there is currently no way to get your data out of the app, although you can probably preserve it through an iPhone backup. The lack of a syncing solution was a tad disappointing to me. What if my phone was stolen? How would I recover my written memories then? Hopefully it won’t be too long until iCloud syncing is implemented.
The app is also iPhone-only, for now. It would definitely be nice to see this on the iPad (maybe even Mac), as I believe that’s the better way of journaling, especially for long form (which is what I tend to do). I mostly write about my day on Day One on the Mac, and then the iPad with my Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover when I’m not on my laptop. It may be hard to type out long entries with the iPhone’s small keyboard, especially since there is no landscape support.
It would be awesome if Journalized can eventually support Markdown syntax, though I realize that this may be a power-feature that won't be used by everyone.
While the app is beautiful and fun to use, I can’t fully recommend it until it at least gets syncing (unless you like putting all of your eggs into one basket), and perhaps landscape keyboard support. However, it’s definitely worth watching, especially for future updates.
I wonder if Journalized can get syncing integration before Day One implements multimedia.
