App Smart
Daily Journal Writing Without the Inconvenience of Paper
By KIT EATON
Published: September 19, 2012
Despite being a wordy sort of fellow, I’ve never put pen to paper daily to create a meaningful diary. I did make some tentative attempts when I was an adolescent, sure, but I never got hooked on a journal. With my sievelike memory, this means some precious moments of my past are now hazy. If I had a diary, I’d simply be able to look up what happened.
A monthly calendar summary on the Day! — The Best Story of Mine app for iOS, which lets you append emoticons to short text entries.
A list of recent entries on the Memoires: The Diary app for Android, which lets you sort by category or keyword or display your entries on a map.
A typical entry list on the Day One — Journal app for iOS, with one entry selected and enlarged on the right to show its text and accompanying photo.
One problem was that I didn’t always have my journal with me when I had the thought I wanted to jot down.
But now diary or journal writing is easier than ever, because, you guessed it, you can do it on a mobile device.
In my home, the journaling app of choice is Day! — The Best Story of Mine, $1 on iOS. It’s visually appealing, and it gets you into regular writing by providing short text entries with an emphasis on icons.
Tapping a date on the app’s calendar lets you write a new entry or edit an existing one. The writing page is simplicity itself — a blank slate with a small row of icons at the top — which, in my mind, removes some of the fuss and barriers to putting your words down. You simply type on the screen’s keyboard, and you can choose your font by tapping an icon at the top.
What makes Day more attractive than some other diary apps are the functions of the other icons on the menu. With a tap, you can set the background color of the page to match your mood, or perhaps to indicate something significant that happened that day. You can affix a photo, a simple weather icon or a symbolic icon, like a smiley face or birthday cake, from the app’s list.
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