Apple iOS 17.2 launched with new Journal app: Here is what’s new

Apple launched an AI-powered journal app for iPhones on Monday as a part of its iOS 17.2 replace.

The Journal app, which was first introduced again in June, makes use of Apple’s Siri to intelligently counsel subjects to journal about. It’d, for instance, immediate you to put in writing about music you had been listening to, or doc appointments you had that day and exercises you accomplished.

The Journal app is one instance of how Apple continues to spend money on new iPhone options on a yearly foundation to guard its iPhone franchise from competitors from Google’s Android and different cellphone makers.

The iPhone remains to be a very powerful product Apple makes, accounting for $205 billion in gross sales in its fiscal 2023, or about 52% of the corporate’s general gross sales. The extra that Apple provides options which might be used each day — like its bank card, or its app retailer, or its iMessage service — the more durable it’s for many customers to modify to a competing cellphone model or working system.

The Journal app additionally highlights Apple’s method to AI. Apple’s synthetic intelligence software program, like what’s powering the Journal app, runs on the gadget itself, not on a server within the cloud, which has privateness benefits over Google’s and Microsoft’s internet-based method, particularly for delicate data like well being information or journey plans. Apple additionally would not spotlight AI as a key characteristic in its advertising and marketing — it prefers the extra educational phrase “machine studying.”

Apple’s Journal app is easy. I have been testing it on a beta model of iOS for a month. Whenever you open the app up — you possibly can lock its contents with Apple’s FaceID — you are delivered to a display with a listing of your entries and a single “+” button.

Urgent the plus button allows you to begin a brand new entry. At first, it seems to be like a typical textual content entry field, like in Apple’s Notes. You possibly can kind in some ideas, add a photograph, pictures you have taken, an audio recording, or drop in a Apple Maps location of the place you have been. The app robotically timestamps the publish.

After you have added a number of entries, the entrance web page of the app fills up along with your earlier entries and you may browse and edit outdated posts. You possibly can filter your outdated entries by those who embody a photograph, or an exercise, or these which might be tagged with a sure place. Journal entries aren’t printed wherever, simply saved inside your particular person Journal app.

The place the machine studying magic seems is underneath the magic wand icon, or the “moments menu.” Whenever you faucet the magic wand icon, it suggests issues to put in writing about based mostly on what it is aware of out of your cellphone, such because the music you had been listening to or the place you had been.

For instance, once I pressed the moments tab on Monday, it steered I write a few current trip — mentioning a map of the place I used to be, hikes I did whereas I used to be on the journey, music I listened to, and pictures I took once I was there. For one entry, I merely recorded an audio file of the waves crashing, so I might return to the second later. (Nevertheless, it did not notice that I had already absolutely documented that trip contained in the Journal app.)

The Journal app’s push notifications may also immediate the consumer. It typically sends a push notification when it detects that you’ve got finished an exercise that you simply would possibly wish to replicate on. For instance, I not too long ago needed to rush to catch a ferry. My watch famous a strolling exercise, and I used to be listening to music on the time. Journaling exercises could possibly be very helpful for people who find themselves coaching for marathons or different athletic achievements.

The Journal app additionally despatched me notifications asking whether or not I wished to put in writing in regards to the expertise. Some days, notifications despatched by the app merely asks you to replicate in your day. Apple additionally consists of a number of prompts designed to spur reflection: “Make an audio recording of your environment. Write about what you discover.”

The app may also be social, suggesting to journal about actions with others when it detects contacts close by.

Apple’s Journal app is primary proper now. Nothing it does moreover solutions could not be finished in an old style paper journal, or perhaps a web page inside Apple’s Notes app. However the solutions and integration with Apple’s different companies set it aside from extra low-tech approaches, and spotlight how Apple’s integration of {hardware} and software program implies that it might study what’s vital in your life with out gathering your information on its servers.

Apple is even making its machine studying mannequin that guesses what may be vital to the consumer out there to different apps by a programming interface, that means that different apps may gain advantage from Apple’s AI.

Apple must proceed to enhance the Journal app so as to discover a place in most individuals’s on a regular basis routines. It could be higher if it might robotically fill out extra of an entry, particularly ones based mostly on pictures or different actions. For now, there is not any export perform, which might allow the Journal app to grow to be a extra helpful place to gather ideas and concepts that would at some point be printed.

The journal app is on the market in iOS 17.2, which could be downloaded on trendy iPhones now. Here is the best way to get it:

• Open Settings.
• Faucet Normal
• Select Software program Replace.

Chances are you’ll discover another new options in iOS 17.2. The replace additionally consists of the flexibility to alter the default alert sound, sticker reactions in iMessage, and a machine studying characteristic that blurs pictures and different content material despatched to you which will embody nudity.