Apple is reportedly planning an iPhone journaling app that would let users log their daily thoughts, feelings and activities, The Wall Street Journal reports(Opens in a new window).
The app, currently code-named “Jurassic”, could be announced as soon as Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference in June and included as part of iOS 17 in Autumn, the Journal notes.
According to documents about the app seen by the WSJ, Apple’s ideas for the app include assessing iPhone usage data to make suggestions about what users would want to journal about. The app would also be able to gather user data through access to text messages and phone calls and reportedly analyze users’ behavior to track how much time is spent at home or elsewhere, who they spend time with, and whether a certain day included a trip or event out of the norm.
Through a feature called “All People Discovery”, the app would also detect a user’s physical closeness to other people, and distinguish between friends outside work and colleagues, the WSJ reported.
The move to launch a journaling app could mean other similar apps find themselves in a potentially difficult situation.
The founder of one such journaling app competitor, Day One, said Apple is effectively “sherlocking” journal app developers. The term refers to when major platform developers Apple, or Google develop native features that replace third-party apps.
Paul Mayne told the WSJ: “It’s always the worst thing to have to hear that you’re about to be sherlocked. It will definitely give us some competition.”
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Mayne added that Day One hadn’t been featured as prominently in the App Store in the past three years and he suspected that was because of Apple’s plans to launch a new journaling app.
Apple did not immediately respond to PCMag’s request for comment and declined to return a comment for the WSJ’s report.
