This intimate iOS 17 feature won’t make it to the iPad for another year

With the Vision Pro stealing the show in quite the fashion, you probably don’t remember much else from Apple’s WWDC event in June.

There was an iOS 17 feature announcement – one of many – a new Journal app. Long story short, it could be described as a “new way to appreciate life's moments”, or simply put – a digital daily diary for users to record their activities and memories.

Now, the Journal app is making its premiere on the iOS 17.2 beta and it seems like it’s exclusive for iPhone devices and can’t be found for iPads and Mac systems for now.

9to5Mac has the story that users who have installed iPadOS 17.2 beta (or macOS 14.2 beta) have noticed that the Journal app can’t be found on the iPad or Mac, only on the iPhone with iOS 17.2. By digging into iOS 17.2 code, they say that the Journal app is only compatible with the iPhone at this point, and it seems unlikely that it will be made available for other devices in the near future (maybe it could be available on the iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 next year).

This is in tune with Cupertino itself: only the iOS 17 webpage mentions the existence of the Journal app. There’s nothing about the upcoming app on the iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma web pages.

More about Journal

Journal is a new iPhone app that “helps users reflect on everyday moments and special events in their lives”, as Apple puts it. To help inspire a user’s journal entry, personalized suggestions can be intelligently curated from a user’s recent activity, such as photos, people, places, workouts, and more, and scheduled notifications can help build a journaling habit.

If you’re nervous to use it, Apple claims there’s the option to lock the app. With “the use of on-device processing, and end-to-end encryption, Journal is built to protect a user’s privacy and ensure no one — including Apple — can access a user’s entries”.