iOS 17 to Include Dedicated Journaling App and Mood Tracking

[redbeard331]

Don’t be dense. You know exactly what I mean. And the retort is missing the point. I hope your evolution doesn’t allow you to eat from your ass.

Hey don’t get mad, if you want to stay in the Stone Age more power to ya. 🍽️💩

 

[Beautyspin]

Hope they don't make this subscription-based or part of Apple One.

 

[DeepIn2U]

From the sounds of it, it is more of an automated health tracker app with the ability to say how you feel vs something like Day One or Diarly?

I journal and have since 2009. I used Day One heavily and now Diarly. I like looking at my journal entries on X day over the years to see how things have changed. I use them like a Star Trek "Log Entry" - not too long, not too much information, and sometimes a few pictures if the day warrants it.

As someone who works at home, I'm going to fail badly on the "around other people" metric... <shrug>.

As I get older I find I'm using voice to text more to do a quick summary of my day vs typing. Much less effort. Diarly also has a recording to text feature too when I'm lazier and don't want to dictate sentence structure. It also inputs some health data every day into my entries (with my permission).

I guess we have to wait till next month to get more information on this - not a lot to go on...

While this is a great use case you’re doing via third party, and possible what Apple will do in part I don’t think this is the primary goal.

In this day and age of so many diagnosed with mental illness in the western world since Pandemic 2020 (especially amongst youth) .. I think this is more catered to those either experience episodes without their mental health situation or for those unaware they have such experiences.

This could have some algorithms to early identification and help with entries for journal logs. Heart rate, blood pressure spikes while at rest or tracking if certain locations “may” trigger a prompt for a journal entry log.

Maybe quick 3 choice drop down selections that get refined as you go through or not. Then an area for manual text journal or voice to text entry.

Moreover for youth underage say 19/13 with parental controls enabled could help alert a parent - maybe engage an FaceID call for certain peak thresholds when reached. Should the parent be in a meeting at work then a trusted health care pro or friends or kids help line.

Someone on twitter requested a great feature where FaceID calls just ring untill hung up or unanswered so why not have a FaceID visual voicemail recording!? In the above paragraph brainstorm I have THIS would be bomb! Something not shareable to protect a child’s trust and identity. This would go to help a child within parental controls have their own control - a real life growth lesson which is great.

In South America I’ve heard youth before 13 already have their own psychologist. And it’s perceived normal and to not have one it’s viewed as insanity. Polar opposite to the western world. Very interesting.

 

[Virinprew]

Hey don’t get mad, if you want to stay in the Stone Age more power to ya. 🍽️💩

I mean the fancy interface really doesn’t matter anymore with technology like chatGPT.

 

[CarlJ]

It would be cool if the iPhone supported the Apple Pencil so that you could do your journaling by hand.

That would require a screen compatible with the pencil, so, added expense and complexity. I don't see Apple thinking the benefit is large enough to account for the drawbacks.

 

[CarlJ]

I'd prefer more ML in the Health app to suggest specific actions via empirical data (derived from sensors on the phone, Watch and other devices).

As at the moment you tend to get 'X measurement has recently changed' with no suggestions as to why.

Answering the "why" question puts Apple in the position of acting as a physician / dispensing medical advice, and I expect they'd run screaming in the opposite direction, to avoid the lawsuits / liability / government scrutiny.

 

[gwhizkids]

Answering the "why" question puts Apple in the position of acting as a physician / dispensing medical advice, and I expect they'd run screaming in the opposite direction, to avoid the lawsuits / liability / government scrutiny.

Yeah. It’s going to be a very long time before that happens.

 

[bluecoast]

Answering the "why" question puts Apple in the position of acting as a physician / dispensing medical advice, and I expect they'd run screaming in the opposite direction, to avoid the lawsuits / liability / government scrutiny.

Agreed. Oh I get that. It's just that the Health app - and Watch - aren't especially useful if they don't have actionable prompts imho.

 

[CarlJ]

Agreed. Oh I get that. It's just that the Health app - and Watch - aren't especially useful if they don't have actionable prompts imho.

The actionable bit is, ask your doctor - tell them your Apple watch says your heart rate (or whatever) is higher over the last past 30 days, and ask them if that's something to be concerned about. They can add that to the other data they've got on file about you. The Watch and Health app put actual numbers on things, where before one could at best say, "doctor, I've been feeling a little funny lately" (and most people won't say something that vague, and/or some doctors may ignore it). The numbers are intended to be interpreted by a physician, not by a program.

Yes, eventually, we may get enough experience with matching numbers to diagnoses programmatically for the Watch to be able to tell you things directly, but for now we're many years off from that. They'd need a ton of studies and FDA approval for anything like that to come about.

 

[bluecoast]

The actionable bit is, ask your doctor - tell them your Apple watch says your heart rate (or whatever) is higher over the last past 30 days, and ask them if that's something to be concerned about. They can add that to the other data they've got on file about you. The Watch and Health app put actual numbers on things, where before one could at best say, "doctor, I've been feeling a little funny lately" (and most people won't say something that vague, and/or some doctors may ignore it). The numbers are intended to be interpreted by a physician, not by a program.

Yes, eventually, we may get enough experience with matching numbers to diagnoses programmatically for the Watch to be able to tell you things directly, but for now we're many years off from that. They'd need a ton of studies and FDA approval for anything like that to come about.

Good answer thanks. Maybe I’m buying too much into the dream of ML + data ‘empowering our lives!’