I am new to journaling. It has been suggested to me by friends and family over the years, but I thought it would be a waste of time. I was wrong. For me, very wrong. The application certainly has many features that paper doesn’t. I won’t waste your time there. What I will share is how easy and intuitive the many features are. I quickly type into my fingerprint locked journal throughout the day. Some thoughts good, so not so much. The ability to append pics to entries is gaining importance for me. The “Insights” feature which allows you to comment on previous days entries is easy to use and emotionally powerful. I have enjoyed the simple uplifting push notifications that wish you a good day or celebrate the day you just had. The application is stand alone, so no data leaves your device unless you want it to. That’s refreshing. Although they don’t require payment for Perspective, I decided to pay $50. I would have spent almost that on paper, binder, etc. and would have never used them. This application I use constantly. As an aside, for those out there that are in some form of professional counseling, reading my journal aloud to my therapist was very helpful to me and my counselor. You don’t need to be crazy to use this app. But you might be crazy not to.

I downloaded this app back in 2019 after trying maybe a dozen other apps first; but this one really nails a lot of things for me, like an easy to use UI that make seeing how my days went super easy, interests I can checkmark on each day I give attention, built-in questions to be even more mindful of my life, I could go on. However, the app went online for (I think) almost over a year, and it devastated me to lose 6 years worth of my journal entries. I’m more than happy now that it’s back, and I’d absolutely keep writing in it now if it weren’t for a few factors:Namely, the app doesn’t get updated anymore as far as I can tell, so the new features you can vote on to have added (or even donate for) will likely never come. The developers haven’t updated anything on the official social media since coming back this year, which worries me that the app might go offline again; maybe for good next time. And lastly, there may not be enough other people downloading the app for the developers to justify continued effort on this app, even if I personally love it. If anything, I’d gladly pay a one time fee if it meant the app gets continued support, but I’m not sure there’s enough people like me out there. In essence; great app. I love it. I wish it got more updates and community engagement/support so I can sleep knowing that my years of entries won’t be missing the next morning.

Usually with apps like this you’re bombarded with overly joyful questions or quotes that really make me want to just delete the app. But this app is very subtle in a calming and enjoyable feel. You have your mood, which isn’t 50 different choices making me question what I was feeling the whole week before that, and you have the calendar view that you can add an entry to everyday with whatever you want, add a pic and even has a wild card question button that I ended up tapping 4 times in the same day due to the simplicity of the questions. They didn’t make me over think things, like most apps do. And they didn’t require me to brainstorm a whole response for one simple entry. Of course you have your little personalizations you can adjust to your liking, as well as adding your interests and viewing your insights. I’m not exactly sure what the discover section was for, I assumed it was for messages from the developers, which is a normal feature for most apps. When I get the money to donate I definitely will! This is a genuine app that I plan to keep!

But it’s a solid app, and I REALLY respect what you’re trying to do. The problem is, I’ve been using Journey on and off for 3 years. If I would have found this before I remembered Journey last month I may have used it. But once I got back into using Journey, it has so many of my memories in it. Also, I love the features of perspective. I like the text feed and the cards and the week reflection, the insights if you change an old entry, all of it. But I’d be losing so much more if I switched. I don’t mind losing text formatting or even switching from the daily journal coach to cards. I also LOVE that your app is truly free (but I just bought the lifetime premium for Journey last month :( ). But I’d be losing location tracking, 2 more moods with charts, tags (almost like interests but I can tag stuff I don’t like too, I wish Journey had something like the interests though). More customization of the app, what tags make you feel a certain mood, health kit insights, etc.I know you guys need donations to get features rolling, so I donated a bit. I’d maybe like to revisit this app once it’s matured a bit, maybe it will surpass Journey :) I like what you guys have going