Apple believes a new journaling app will help it break into a lucrative space for addressing health and daily activities—at the expense of existing apps.
Key Details
- A report uncovered by The Wall Street Journal suggests that the company is already developing a new journaling app called Jurassic.
- It is expected to compete against existing apps like Day One that track and record daily thoughts and activities.
- Jurassic is expected to be able to be integrated into Apple’s iCloud services, gathering data from messages and phone calls and using it to analyze users’ daily activities.
- There is no indication that the app will be free or require a paid subscription, but it may come preloaded onto new iPhones or updated operating systems.
- The app is coded for iOS 17 and may be revealed as early as June.
Why It’s News
Mental health is a valuable space for Apple to be entering. The company has already made forays into mental and physical health through apps and Apple Watch features. Still, a journaling app could stand as a significant internal boost for the company—and it could come at the expense of other existing apps.
It is not uncommon for larger software developers to copy features of smaller startups and companies. Meta was accused of this last summer when features from the growing Be Real app were rumored to begin being implemented into Instagram. This practice is known as “sherlocking,” and it is frowned upon for the way it undermines smaller businesses, although Apple denies it copies features, The Wall Street Journal notes
“It’s always the worst thing to have to hear that you’re about to be sherlocked,” says Day One founder Paul Mayne. He tells The Journal that an Apple journaling app will “definitely give us some competition” and that it will force his team to focus on differentiating Day One from Jurassic to keep it competitive. It currently has 200,000 premium subscribers.