Journal Comes to iPad and Mac

While the Vision Pro stole the show during Apple’s 2023 WWDC, one of the most significant software-related announcements was the debut of a new Journal app in iOS 17.

While there’s no shortage of great journalling apps on the App Store, Apple wanted to create something more frictionless and uniquely tied into other parts of the iOS 17 experience. For example, Journal could suggest new entries based on your music listening history, workouts, photos, calls, messages, and even personal interactions.

When it finally launched in iOS 17.2, the Journal app was refreshingly basic — perhaps too basic for some. This was good news for developers of apps like Day One, which many feared would be “Sherlocked” by Apple — a term colloquially used by Apple fans to refer to first-party apps putting third-party ones out of business. Day One remained a much more sophisticated solution for anyone serious about journaling. Apple also didn’t leave it out in the cold, as it opened the AI-based Journalling Suggestions to third-party apps.

However, the most significant limitation of the Journal app was its siloed existence. Journal was an iOS app with no iPadOS or macOS counterparts available. That meant you had no way to even view your journal entries on an iPad or Mac, much less create new ones.

Thankfully, that changes in iPadOS 26 and macOS 26, which are now getting their own versions of Journal. As you might expect, data syncs across the three platforms via iCloud with full end-to-end encryption. The sync is also optional; it can be toggled off like any other iCloud service if you’d prefer to keep separate journals on each device.