Occasional Thoughts on Educational Technology and Life by Judy Brophy

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Joys of Non-Social Media

screen shotMy husband was keeping notes and reflections on his IPad in the yellow pad notes app so when a friend recommended Day One, a new diary app, I thought I'd try it out to see if it would be an improvement.

Day One is simple; it does what it does, period.  I loathe the word "intuitive" when applied to a software interface, but suffice it to say you can't do anything too wrong here. You can write text notes in a box and do some minimal formatting. You can add a subject tag, a geo-reference and, most importantly, a picture (just one)

It's perfect for a trip diary. Even if you just add a blank entry it will track where you were and what the weather was. You can add those stray notes about a place and the odd photo you take with your IPad. 
I used it during a 10 day vacation recently and it worked well for me. I was able to add  stray notes and observations as well as a short list of activities for that day. 

After using it and exploring it for a bit I realized that what felt truly different about it was that it was not social. I wasn't sharing my observations with anyone but myself. In fact, you can tweet an entry or put it on Facebook, but there is no easy way to share the whole thing with someone else or download, export or print in any meaningful way.

And you know what? that's just fine. I like it here in my private space. I like the creativity of posting a picture for my day, sometimes just a picture. Sometimes just a phrase.

It is a definate improvement on the yellow pad notes app. Both folks that I've recommended it to find it is an easier and faster way to do what they were trying to do with other clunkier software. 
It did cost $4.99, a rather steep price for a simple app, but sometimes, even usually, less is more. It was awarded the Mac App Store 2012 Mac App of the year. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/day-one-journal/id421706526?mt=8
Available for Iphone, IPad and Mac