As you all know by now, I’ve become a huge Journelly fan. Its author, Álvaro Ramírez, thinks of it as Twitter for your private use. That’s a reasonable description given its user interface but it doesn’t begin to capture its real power.
As more and more users have started using the beta, I’ve come to realize that Journelly is a bit of a shape shifter that adapts itself to your needs. Ramírez, apparently, just wanted a simple app that he could use like a private Twitter. My use case is implementing my memo book. I want to capture entries on my phone and keep the results as a permanent record of my daily activities.
JTR over at The Art Of Not Asking Why has a different conception. He is using it as a sort of staging area for capturing notes that he then refiles to the appropriate Org files. That’s possible because one of Journelly’s strengths is that it keeps its data in Org format and can arrange to sync its files with your Mac and other iOS devices.
JTR explains all this in his latest post on Journelly in which he reveals himself as another happy Journelly user. It’s a nice post that recounts his experience with using Journelly. As I say, his use is slightly different from mine but that just speaks to the power and flexibility of Journelly. If you’re the slightest bit interested in Journelly, you should read his post.
About the only thing I don’t agree with is that JTR says that if you’re not an Emacs user, you should probably look elsewhere. Journelly is such a good fit for my memo book that I’d probably use it even if I weren’t an Emacser. But, of course, I am and the fact that its records are in Org format just expands its power for me. As Jack Baty says in a comment to JTR’s post,
I think he things of the .org thing as an implementation detail, so as to not limit his audience, but you’re right, for me it’s The Thing™.
The other thing that JTR mentions that I forgot to write about is that after tapping the big plus sign, you can enter your note orally in the usual iOS way. That’s really powerful, especially when you’re on the run.