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Journaling Platform 'Day One' Transitions to a Subscription Service
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LOL. I use about 20 Apps daily and maybe another 30 to 40 on a regular basis. Would be $90 in your world. Another LOL.
I have, it's not bad. It's an older style app with a lot of features - I like it but since I already had Day One I stuck with Day One. My Wonderful Days is very cartoonish - but if you can get past that, it isn't bad. Biggest problem I've had with it is that it looks like it's not getting active development. http://hahainteractive.com/en/blog/
Days End. Grid Diary Wins.
I understand the need for a revenue stream but $50 is too much imo. I won't be subscribing.
I understand the need for a revenue stream but $50 is too much imo. I won't be subscribing.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
<breathes>
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Seriously?!? This isn't April fools.
<breathes>
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Seriously?!? This isn't April fools.
I purchased v1 on Mac & iOS after reading a blog post about scripting data entry. Never really got around to actually doing that. Mac v2 was too expensive for a filthy casual but I did buy v2 on iOS for the IFTTT features. Have 2 journals set up with that but I'd still never really read them.
Using their sync vs iCloud seemed insecure, so I never really used the app to journal anything myself. The recently released end-to-end encryption was the kick I needed to finally start using the app properly. I really like the activity feed & all of the other integrations. It seemed like a great way to get someone who has never been into journaling started & hooked.
It's just not worth $25/year to me. It sure as hell isn't worth $50/year. But, there are other problems with this "transition"
- there's no mention of this subscription plan on the day one site
- the official twitter account retweeted the announcement (no official statement)
- not even a notice in-app (apparently there was a notice in the update, but I have autoupdate turned on so I didn't see it)
- the transition to subscription was announced & implemented way too fast (there goes my chance to buy the Mac version without subscribing)
- the subscription doesn't work (easily) with family sharing
- there are no features on the roadmap I am interested in
Something seems Not Good ™ to me. I smell a desperate move towards revenue generation that makes me think the company is having financial trouble. Subscribing for any dollar amount seems like a risk, never mind continuing to add data.
It's not really a question of what other service is out there. I'll just stop journaling because I don't write enough. If the app is still around in a year or two I may be tempted to sign up for something like $10/year.
Maybe they could use the email address they collected when they forced me to convert to their proprietary sync platform?
Are you really saying that updating the terms of service for paying customers via the release notes on the App Store is reasonable? Call me unreasonable, but I’ve given them £50+ and I expect at least a courtesy note when they downgrade my experience - and yes, they are absolutely downgrading my experience. I paid for a reasonable period of feature-current use, and they’ve just changed that without warning. I understand the change in business model - don’t like it and won’t subscribe - but the way this has been done leaves a lot to be desired.
A couple of things..
1. You don't have to pay for anything. If you already bought version 2 it is going to keep on working. You only have to buy the subscription if you want the new feature they talked about, the discount on the books and (assumedly) access to future versions.
2. If you are spending hundreds or thousands a year on software, then it better be making you money. And if you determine the cost is worth it in relation to what you get out of it, then that's not a huge deal. If you just want to be a software hoarder, then not so much. But each person should know how that shakes out for themselves. The only subscription software I use is TextExpander. Outside of that I'm fine with using standalone versions of software that offers subscriptions (1Password, Day One, Parallels).
If you are someone who doesn't use Day One much, I can see how this is not something that seems like a good deal for you. But if you are someone who uses it a lot then I can see how something like this would be preferable over keeping a Pages journal or some other software that doesn't measure up feature wise.
Genuinely - it didn’t work for me. I have journal entries from my mac dated yesterday and I didn’t see this. Always possible that I missed it - but I used DayOne yesterday and don’t recall anything like this.
OK...weird.
I signed in to Day One with my AppleID on phone. then synced...or thought I did. then opened the Mac App and finally got my AppleID to work there. I can see my account info online and it shows 400+ entries. BUT I cannot sync them to the Mac unless I upgrade to the subscription model.
or so it seems. If that is true, then I won't be using the Mac App. I thought it could be nice to see journal entries from years earlier but ...maybe this fun will die out too.
I see what you're saying and I agree. I deleted the app when they got rid of iCloud / Dropbox sync. I eventually went back but I wasn't happy about it. Google Docs makes a great journaling experience - the ability to put images in line and wrap text around it ... really great. For the last few years I wrote in Google Docs then copy/pasted to Day One just so I could have the location/"Past entries on this date" and other features (easily accessible on iPhone, etc...).
$50 is steep. I pay $20/year for 100GB of Google Drive space. Sure I'm only paying $24.99/year for Day One now but ... if I didn't use it every day I don't think I'd do it.
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Damn... I was hoping that wasn't the case. That sucks
I was worried that was going to happen - if you didn't already have the apps (I did and I had plus everywhere on all my devices) --- that they would require you to go to Premium to get it on the other device. That sucks.[doublepost=1498765251][/doublepost]
Interesting - I noticed my iPhone had an update for Day One so I initiated the Day One update on my Mac mini yesterday (right after work) and got that popup telling me about Premium right after updating.
I too, along with other posters on this page, wonder why this wasn't more transparent / forewarned.
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Right now I've got an eye on 1Writer. Beautiful app. One time $5 purchase for a universal app. Save markdown journal entries to Dropbox. Done.
LOL. Touche!
I guess I'm weighing whether my love for the app is greater than my loathing for SaaS.
Damn... I was hoping that wasn't the case. That sucks
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It could be a goof on my end somewhere. when i try to use the iPhone app, I check settings and see it continuously try and sync or upload. something isn't right. I haven't synced or signed into the App/Account prior to today. could be another issue.
I mainly thought it could be neat to track my days a year or 2 or more in the past. I can probably keep using the Mobile app version. I am not a fan of subscriptions (I understand from a budget trading it makes things easier than hoping people jump on a paid update when that happens).
I was excited to see the Day One on a Mac drop to Free today...then saw this article and realized it was probably hopeless but thought perhaps I'd get to use the 'skeleton' version I have now and just not get the fancy bells and whistles.
Well, due to some incidents unrelated to Day One, a had to stop using it for a while. Instead I turned to Apple Notes for a very bare bones app for notes and thoughts and it actually turned out to fit my needs perfectly. So this move from the folks behind Day One may mean that I don't return to the app, but stays with Notes (and pen and paper).
A small independent tech company is not a good platform anyway for writings that you want to save for posterity
when you (and others that) use Apple Notes....do you create a new Note each day for a journal? Do a Monthly Journal/Note, Yearly Note...or One Large continuous Note?
Thanks
This is the exact question I wanted to ask as well! Good question. I'm curious as well. When I used Google Docs I did 1 document for a month.
I had the original version for both iOS and Mac, then got the newer one for both as well. I won't be paying a year payment for this. I like what I have now and hopefully it never goes away. I do like the app because it allows me to write on the go and anywhere, but thats too much for what it offers. No thanks.
On average one note per week, longer than that and it becomes unwieldy to open and close the note in the iOS app, especially if you write lots of text like me. I also copy every note into an old style word document every few days because sometimes I also add pics and other information to the post.
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