•  Apple has launched a new app called Journal, which aims to help users improve their wellbeing by capturing and writing about their life experiences.

Journal, which is available today with the release of iOS 17.2, allows users to add photos, videos, audio recordings, locations, and other content to their journal entries, and provides personalized suggestions and prompts to inspire them to write.

Journaling has been shown to have positive effects on mental health, such as reducing stress, enhancing mood, and boosting self-esteem. According to Apple, Journal makes it easy to preserve rich and powerful memories, and practice gratitude by intelligently curating information that is personal to the user, right from their iPhone.

“Journaling is a powerful way to connect with yourself, express your emotions, and reflect on your goals,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We are excited to bring the benefits of journaling to more people with Journal, a new app that makes it simple and fun to create meaningful entries with just a few taps.”

Journal also introduces a new feature called Journaling Suggestions API, which enables third-party journaling apps to offer personalized suggestions to their users, based on their activity and preferences. The API is designed to be privacy-preserving, so that users can control what type of content they want to share with the Journal app and add to their entries.

One of the first apps to integrate the Journaling Suggestions API is Day One, a popular journaling app that has been around since 2011. Paul Mayne, founder of Day One, said that the Journal app is an exciting development for the journaling community, and that the API will enhance the user experience of Day One.

“The Journal app is a great way to introduce more people to the benefits of digital journaling, and we are thrilled to be part of it,” Mayne said. “By using the Journaling Suggestions API, we can offer our users more personalized and relevant prompts to write about, while maintaining the highest level of privacy. We can’t wait for our users to try it and see how it enriches their journaling practice.”

Journal is built with privacy at its core, and uses on-device machine learning to generate suggestions and prompts. Users can choose to enable secondary authentication, and lock the Journal app with their device passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID. All Journal entries are end-to-end encrypted when stored in iCloud, so that only the user can access them.

Journal is available for free for all iPhone users with iOS 17.2 or later. Users can download the app from the App Store, or visit apple.com/journal for more information.