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.

17 Hidden iOS 17 Features and Settings on Your iPhone

Invitation for the Apple September iPhone 15 event

Text message verification codes on iPhone

+15 more

See all photos

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.

I Took 600+ Photos With the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Look at My Favorites

+31 more

See all photos

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 29, #963

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 29 #963.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

What a fun NYT Connections puzzle today! There’s a favorite children’s story in one group, and four classic author surnames that, naturally, don’t show up in an «author surname» category. Read on for clues and all of today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Maybe it’s Maybelline.

Green group hint: Too hot, too cold, just right.

Blue group hint: Raise a cup.

Purple group hint: They all sound like words with a similar meaning.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Makeup.

Green group: Featured in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Blue group: Ending with drinking vessels.

Purple group: Homophones of words meaning «brutal.»

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is makeup. The four answers are bronzer, foundation, liner and stain.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is featured in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The four answers are bear, bed, Goldilocks and porridge.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is ending with drinking vessels. The four answers are fiberglass, Silverstein, smug and stumbler.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is homophones of words meaning «brutal.» The four answers are Gorey, Grimm, grizzly and Scarry.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Jan. 29, #493

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Jan. 29, No. 493.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features some tricky terms. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Checkmate!

Green group hint: Think Nadia Comăneci.

Blue group hint: Soccer stars.

Purple group hint: H2O.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Chess pieces.

Green group: Gymnastics terms.

Blue group: Premier League Golden Boot winners.

Purple group: Water ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is chess pieces. The four answers are bishop, pawn, queen and rook.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is gymnastics terms. The four answers are handspring, round-off, salto and twist.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Premier League Golden Boot winners. The four answers are

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is water ____. The four answers are bottle, boy, hazard and polo.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

Google Gives Chrome an AI Side Panel and Lets Gemini Browse for You

The update also includes Nano Banana image tools and deeper integrations with Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, Maps and Flights.

Google is turning Chrome into something closer to a digital copilot.

In the next wave of Gemini updates rolling out, Google on Wednesday revealed a set of new AI-powered features coming directly to its browser, aimed at reducing the frustrations of exploring the internet each day. Built on Gemini 3, the updates introduce an always-available side panel, deeper app integrations, creative image tools and a new browser agent called auto browse that can complete multistep tasks on your behalf.

Essentially, Google wants Chrome to be like an AI wingman that browses, compares and multitasks for you.

Now you can automate browsing

To me, the standout new addition is auto browse, a browser agent designed to handle tedious and time-consuming chores. Instead of hopping between tabs, filling out forms or manually comparing prices of things like products or flights, you can ask Chrome to do the legwork.

Auto browse can research flights and hotels across different dates, collect documents, schedule appointments, manage subscriptions and help with tasks like renewing a driver’s license or filing expense reports.

In a live demo I saw, Product Lead Charmaine D’Silva used the new tools to plan a family vacation. Gemini compared destinations and prices across multiple travel sites, checked school calendars to see when her kids were off and lined up schedules to find workable travel windows. When it came time to book, though, D’Silva emphasized that the final decision and purchase were still hers, underscoring Google’s plan to keep humans in control for key tasks like booking and purchases.

The feature is rolling out to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US now, signaling Google’s broader push toward more agentic AI experiences.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

A new side panel experience

Another update rolling out now is a redesigned Gemini side panel in Chrome, available across MacOS, Windows and Chromebook Plus. Instead of opening a separate tab, Gemini now lives alongside whatever you’re working on, making it easier to multitask without breaking your flow. Testers have used it to summarize reviews across sites, compare shopping options and juggle packed calendars while keeping their main task front and center.

AI image editing with Nano Banana

Chrome is also trying to become more creative. Google is bringing Nano Banana, its AI image editing and generation tool, directly into the browser. You can now edit and reimagine images you find on the web without downloading files or switching apps — whether that’s mocking up a living room redesign or turning raw data into an infographic at work.

Chrome connects with other Google apps

Under the hood, Gemini in Chrome is becoming more connected to the rest of Google’s ecosystem. Integrations with Gmail, Calendar, Maps, YouTube, Google Flights and Shopping will allow the assistant to pull in relevant context and take action across apps. Planning a trip, for example, could involve referencing an old email, checking flight options and drafting a follow-up email to your travel companions. Now all in one place.

More to come

Looking ahead, Google says personal intelligence is coming to Chrome in the coming months. With user opt-in, Gemini will remember context from past interactions to deliver more tailored, proactive help across the web, while giving you control over what data is connected and when.