Appreciation and concern for this app
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For many users, myself included, Day One and the principles in attention to detail and functionality which Paul Mayne cared for from the start were bedrock reasons for us starting to use the app.
No pixel was ever out of place, each function was carefully considered and added for legitimate reasons – not just because it could be made.
Since the move to Auttomatic we have seen and appreciated the faster pace of updates and bugfixes, the rollout of new functions almost as soon as the OS API allows them. We have welcomed the web app and the ability for subscribers chained to Windows machines at work to be able to access their data securely.
Equally though, things have been slipping.
There has been the rollout of the new UI which I personally love, but others have found unpleasant. With Day One sometimes being the only sanctuary or constant for people to confide in, changes here are always liable to jarr. When the timeline view was tweaked a few years ago, we were given the option of the classic timeline to let people slowly adjust. I don’t understand why that olive branch wasn’t extended with the UI, but there will be legitimate reasons…so communicate them in plenty of time with your blog.
We have used markdown to create tables for years and indeed there is a guide for this in the Day One website. Yet markdown tables was suddenly pulled for future and previous posts in a recent update. Ok, there must be legitimate reasons but again…communicate them in the blog and at the very least give some heads up as to why this change is necessary. If we are given reasons, we are more likely to accept the change.
Then we come to the Day One website. This is the shop window for the app, its stall to show off its abilities and attract new and existing customers. If we look at the main page (dayoneapp.com) we see the current iOS UI – great! If we then go to the next page ‘Features’ https://dayoneapp.com/features/ , we find that the screenshots are all for the old UI which was replaced months ago! Why have these still not been updated? Worse when you scroll down to the sections “A journal you actually go back and read”, “Get in the habit. Stay in the habit” and “Type less, record more”, you find old UI screenshots that are all the wrong aspect ratio. How sloppy does that look especially for an app that prides itself on attention to detail? The screenshots in the app store for iPad and Apple Watch are wrong too…c’mon!
One of the features touted is the Safari and Chrome extensions. The Chrome extension was removed years ago and is still flagged on the support section of the website in an update from 2021 saying that it is hoped to be brought back in 2022. (1) Why is it still be offered as a function on the features section of the website and (2) when on earth is it coming back?
Move on to the ‘Premium’ page of the website https://dayoneapp.com/premium/ and we find that various graphics on the page have been removed but not replaced. It looks awful and just a massive page of text begging the phrase TL:DR.
Finally, the Paper Journals page….I don’t know where to start here. They’ve been around for ages and yet only one of the three is available and even then only in the USA. So perhaps this part should be shelved until all three are available in the USA and further afield. At the moment it looks like a function/feature that is half baked and not fully resourced and just reflects badly.
I love this app and the community that it has here to assist fellow users and to give feedback. I hope that this post will be seen as coming from nowhere other than a place of love and deep care for the app but with concern for the lack of thought or attention to detail that is creeping in.
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Thank you for this valuable feedback. I am sharing this message in its entirety with our team for review.
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I second this… I’m returning to the app after some time away and whilst the app seems to have a modern interface, it feels less polished than it once did.
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Thanks, @pauldreeves68087869a4. We have shared this forum post with the team. Additional comments will be reviewed as well.
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I completely agree with this. Something is very wrong at Automattic, and I deeply miss Bloom Built. The onslaught of new “features” that most of us don’t need or want, the removal of things we do want, the lack of care given to things like the website and App Store postings (I reported those screenshots months ago. **Why are they still wrong???**), and the lack of transparency.
If you desperately need to clean up tech debt, then tell us (I’m a software engineer. I get it). If you are planning a new direction for the product, then tell us. If you have reasons for leaving stale screenshots up for months, then tell us. Without any extra context, you leave it to us to assume that our once-favorite app is in managed decline.
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Thanks, @boldwater8759.
We welcome any future comments on this post. We have shared the link to the full post to developers and designers of Day One, so it is on our radar, even if we do not respond to each comment. Your passion and care for Day One is heard. Thank you for your feedback!
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I thought I should follow up my original post with additional thoughts. I didn’t want to create a post that was overly long in the first instance.
First, I was grateful to see a couple of other users of this wonderful app comment that they felt similarly about recent happenings with the app. It was gratifying to see that I wasn’t alone.
I would like if I could now, to put forward a couple of enhancements which I did raise many years ago when we had the far more personalised chat feedback system within the app.
Firstly, video within the app is such a wonderful way of preserving, and thus sparking in the future, memories of a happy time. When video first came to the app, it was in 1080i high definition. This was the typical higher quality that people could expect to shoot on their mobile phones. That was a long time ago now and technology has moved on such that 4K quality is sometimes a more typical default on some mobile models. Whilst I am not expecting to be able to upload huge quantities of 4K footage, it should at least be an option.
Additionally, I had posed the fact that many of us (myself included) are familiar with transcoding video. We are able to convert video using codecs which give us the same quality, but far smaller file sizes. At the moment, Day One only allows up to 6 minutes of high definition video. Whilst this is sufficient for many situations, it is actually not long enough to upload a video from a typical Disney theme park ride. If uploads were based on file size rather than duration I could upload a 20 minute firework display video from Disney World in high definition with as good quality but with a far smaller file size than a six minute high definition video. I would actually be able to save the company storage space whilst getting more from the app than I currently can. I doubt that I can be alone with either this thought or these transcoding abilities.
Evernote was groundbreaking and it allowed users to store PDF files within a note. When Day One listened to feedback and allowed this several years ago, it was a huge benefit to users. Finally, we could add PDF files of booking confirmations or even scans of concert tickets to a memory. Please could you also allow users to email into Day One with a PDF file or a photo attachment? These are files supported within the app as it is. So why not make the logical workflow connection and allow users to more easily use the app?
Evernote was taken over by bending spoons co. around two years ago. Since then, prices have skyrocketed, support became impersonal and their Podcasts stopped. Since Auttomatic took over Day One, the in-app support chat vanished to replaced with impersonal support and podcasts have stopped as well. Evernote has been losing users hand over fist since they made these changes and I really hope Day One isn’t going to copy them with that too.
The Day One podcasts were excellently produced and helped the community rally around the app as well as letting the devs communicate directly to their users. I really hope that they can return. We so rarely have a blog post these days from the devs talking about what has gone right/wrong (being open about mistakes actually attracts users as it shows humanity and a willingness to learn), what things are coming soon and even the chance to say what ideas are being mused upon.As before, these thoughts come from a place of love and appreciation for the app and the team. I’m hoping to just help constructively.
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@yr5rh9hqdp Thank you for your detailed feedback and suggestions for improving Day One. We appreciate your passion for the app and your willingness to share your insights.
We’re actively listening to your feedback and considering ways to enhance the app based on your suggestions. While we can’t provide specific timelines or commitments, we’re working towards implementing improvements that will benefit our users.
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I have quite a few entries that use HTML for creating tables. I was surprised when they were all rendered so horribly after an update. And I’m currently confused as to whether there is way to create tables in the new version. The entry that acknowledges the discontinuation of table marked down. HTML seems to proceeded to show the old method of creating tables.
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It’s another follow up from me this time looking at the web app and security.
For many users, myself included, the web app is fantastic as we are forced to use Windows devices for our work. Ironically we do a lot of our best creative work in Day One and up until the web app came out, there was a disconnect between our creativity for work projects and the work environment. The web app has helped solve this.
I think too many people (Automattic included) are seeing the web app as a like-for-like version of the iOS or Mac apps. It should be seen as a complimentary version to access your content, do basic organisation/creation and export content.
With this in mind I love being able to access my content on the web. My work requires me to be able to access PDF documents and having them organised and tagged within Day One has been a huge productivity change for me.
One very basic function which the web app still lacks is the ability to move an entry from one journal into another. This is a really vital omission at this time.
Also, the web app doesn’t have the ability to export our content as a JSON. It would be useful to have this and let a desktop machine do the heavy lifting rather than our iPhones. I don’t have a Mac so it would tie my iPhone up for hours to try and do this.My only comment about security is that Bloom Built had the end to end encryption audited in June 2017. It was appreciated that they went and did this and were so open and transparent, but after 7 years I think it is time for a follow up audit. 7 years ago the iPhone 7 was the current model so tech has moved on!
Finally, it was lovely to see the legend that is Adam Daly respond to posts in this thread. Adam, your podcasts hooked so many of us into this app, they shared wonderful stories and use cases and the notification about a new episode is greatly missed.
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Hello @yr5rh9hqdp!
One very basic function which the web app still lacks is the ability to move an entry from one journal into another. This is a really vital omission at this time.
Also, the web app doesn’t have the ability to export our content as a JSON. It would be useful to have this and let a desktop machine do the heavy lifting rather than our iPhones. I don’t have a Mac so it would tie my iPhone up for hours to try and do this.Keep in mind, the dayone.me is still in beta and new features will be added in the future as development continues. This will take some time.
My only comment about security is that Bloom Built had the end to end encryption audited in June 2017. It was appreciated that they went and did this and were so open and transparent, but after 7 years I think it is time for a follow up audit. 7 years ago the iPhone 7 was the current model so tech has moved on!
We do plan on having this audited again. We will report the findings once that audit has been completed.
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I have several entries that utilize HTML for table creation, and I was surprised to see them rendered poorly after a recent update. I’m now unsure whether it’s still possible to create tables in the new version. The entry acknowledging the discontinuation of table support was marked down, and it seems HTML has reverted to showing the old method for table creation.
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@dimitrydevan We plan to address the markdown tables in the upcoming releases.
Please stay tune for any updates of the app. Thank you for your understanding!
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If anyone has doubts that the devs pay attention to what has been written here…
I originally posted mentioning the website needing attention to detail with graphics and aspect ratios…these have been fixed.
I lamented the demise of the podcast…the podcast just started again after three long years of radio silence.
I mentioned the lack of ability to move items between journals using the web app…guess what functionality just went live? Yup.
Now, I don’t for one second think that this happened just because of me. This forum is a collective where we can flag items of concern, point out tweaks that would enhance the experience and give thanks.
The developers do the coding but they are clearly keen on letting users “build” the app too.
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that’s nice, but:
- iPad App Store screenshots still show the old design
- no option to permanently disable that awful page flip startup animation
- still no journal colors on the entry page.
they may have fixed some things, but there are a lot of inexplicable gaps that still remain
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@yr5rh9hqdp thanks for the great feedback! We do certainly listen to our users feedback, so please keep it coming :)
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@boldwater8759 our team are still hard at work to make such improvements. They have to prioritise based on what is getting the most feedback, so if others report what you mention too, it will increase its chances of being addressed sooner.
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One thing I know I’m not alone in wishing for is Day One supporting live photos.
Live Photos capture 1.5 seconds before and after you press the shutter button and help bring a moment to life. They were brought to the iPhone is 2015 meaning that the majority of Day One’s users will have quite a back catalogue of Live Photos which still can’t be properly relived in Day One.
Many more junior journal apps already support them so I wonder why Day One hasn’t caught up yet?
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