Technologies

iOS 17.2 Brings Apple’s Journal App to the iPhone. It’s Not What I Expected

Commentary: I don’t use Journal every night, but even opening the app and looking back helps put time into perspective.

Apple has dropped iOS 17.2 for the iPhone, and it comes with one of the most eagerly awaited apps in recent memory: Journal.
Have you noticed that our iPhones have been trying to fix us? This little gadget in our pocket keeps track of so many aspects of our life, including our schedules, communication, money and health. It’s smart enough to suggest how to optimize our time spent using the device, remind us when our music is too loud, or point out how much time we spend looking at its pretty screen while scrolling through TikTok.

Now Apple has another major selling point: Your iPhone can help you be a better you. Its new Journal app is designed to help you reflect and practice gratitude by writing about moments of your day. I’ve been using it for the past month, and there are aspects of the app that aren’t what I expected.

Apple announced Journal back in June at WWDC. It’s part of iOS 17, but unlike other features, it needed more time to bake and wasn’t included in the September release of the new iPhone software.

I’ve been testing it for a month, with the public beta version of iOS 17.2, and the Journal app is far more than just a place to jot down thoughts on blank pages. I have plenty of blank journals that I never write in (even though I keep buying them). Obviously, when I’m burnt out after a long day, I don’t grab my paisley Moleskine.

Instead, I do what any sane person does: scroll on my iPhone while in bed — so it makes sense to journal at night on my phone. I open the Journal app and click to make a post. There are personalized suggestions, called Moments, that give me something to write about. And when I say personalized, these suggestions from my iPhone get real detailed.

Reflections, suggestions, and that time I went to Wendy’s

Journal pulls from my recent activity, showing photos I took, people I texted, places I visited and music I’ve listened to. If I ever actually logged a workout on my Apple Watch, it would show me that, too. It also weaves in photo memories from years ago. There are also Reflections that present prompts, ideas and questions. The prompts aren’t cheesy, and I find them interesting, which is, of course, the idea. These thought exercises help me zoom out to see the bigger picture.

Scrolling through my suggestions, there’s one of a Friday night hangout with friends, a photo of my son when he was little from three years ago, a question prompt, and a photo of my family picking out a Christmas tree from this past weekend. I see photos of my dad visiting New York in 2018, and I get a reminder that I ate at a Wendy’s last week. So not every moment is worthy of a post, but the suggestions give you little flashbacks that jolt your brain into replaying memories.

Some suggestions can be strange. Journal knows that I went to a specific Wendy’s and wants me to write about it — clearly iPhone knows a lot about my life and burger consumption habits. Apple says all of this is being done while protecting your privacy. The suggested posts from your activities stay inside your iPhone, and Apple can’t see them. The same limits apply to any third-party journal apps that use Apple’s journal suggestion tool API in their software.

Apple says no one but you can access your Journal. Even if your phone is unlocked and you hand it to someone, they can’t get into the app, because you can lock your Journal. I set it to unlock with Face ID. If you sync it to iCloud, it’s stored with end-to-end encryption.

My Journal always hits me with photo memories of my kids, trying to give me a dopamine hit with nostalgia. Like, «Hey, remember this cute moment?» My problems today aren’t so big if I think about nice stuff that happened in the past. It’s like having a therapist guide you to reset your perspectives.

Imperfect memories and limits

There are some hiccups. For example, once I got my nails done early in the morning and the app assumed I was having breakfast at a restaurant next door. I suppose it’s OK if it’s not perfect since it’s just meant to be a starting point for your dear-diary moment. You don’t have to write a post for every suggestion.

Journal lets you add photos, audio or video to your entries, but there are limits. For instance, video files need to be under 500 megabytes, so I couldn’t add a two-minute video that I shot in 4K. Since your entries are stored locally on your iPhone, limiting the size of your media files in Journal helps save space.

On the surface all this makes sense: «Yeah, you got a fancy digital diary!» So what I’m about to say next may sound weird. There’s no way to share any of these posts. And it isn’t just no sharing, it’s no searching. I can’t go, «Oh yeah, I remember that nice Halloween post I made, let me pull that photo up and share it.» Nothing is shareable. You’re crafting what look like classic Facebook posts, but they’re just for you. No one will know about them.

Too many years being on social media have messed me up, so I can’t fathom making content that no one else will see. I realize I have to rethink a few things about the value of writing about my memories.

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The lack of a search tool in the Journal app is a bummer, too. Searching is just scrolling back. The best you can do is bookmark some of your favorite posts, because then you can narrow down entries by filtering what’s bookmarked, or having it show you just photos, audio posts or locations. I guess scrolling is kind of like flipping through the pages of an actual handwritten journal. But then what’s the point of journaling digitally?

There’s also another wrinkle that took me a while to realize. Journal is just another way to lock you into iOS and the Apple ecosystem. Imagine that a year goes by and you made hundreds of posts, all of which are stored on your iPhone. Would you just throw away that diary and switch to Android?

I’m not the only CNET staffer who’s been testing out Journal in beta. Patrick Holland, CNET managing editor and iPhone reviewer, has also been playing with it. Here are his first impressions:

Journal’s secret sauce is triggering your emotions

Like Bridget, I’ve enjoyed the Journal app so far. But sadly, I haven’t had any prompts to relive that great Frosty-and-fries experience I had at Wendy’s. What surprises me about Journal is how un-Apple it is. The star of the app is the suggestions feature, and how easily a suggestion can trigger a memory or make me relive a moment that at the time seemed mundane, but now prompts a bunch of feelings.

Using Journal reminds me of the analog experiences I’ve had doing creative writing exercises or following the book The Artist’s Way.

What Journal does best is gives me a space for my feelings and a way to organize my thoughts. The suggestions are very personal and private. One made me exit the app and call my family, while another made me wish I still could talk to someone who had died.

Final thoughts on Journal

I agree with Patrick and think Journal is worth trying out. Sure, there are things that could be tweaked, like adding a way to search for a post. But if the job of Journal is to help our mental health and fix some of the busy-brain problems we have in this day and age, it does that. It made me think about what really matters and offered a way to quickly switch my mindset. I don’t use Journal every night, but even opening the app and looking back helps put time into perspective.

CNET’s Patrick Holland contributed to this report.

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Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
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Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
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Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.