Dear Diary: 5 Journal Apps for iPhone

**Waqas** · September 2, 2011

Many of us remember how fun (not to mention therapeutic) it was to pour our innermost thoughts into a pen-and-paper diary, but how many of us take the time to keep a personal journal today?

As you no doubt take your mobile everywhere you go, a diary app for your iPhone means you can get scribbling whenever you have a spare five minutes, be that waiting in line, on your commute or before bed.

SEE ALSO: Back to School: 15 Essential iOS Apps for Students

We’ve found five fantastic iPhone journals that will give you a digital outlet for your thoughts, but with some diary-themed twists. Let us know in the comments if these apps inspire you to start a fresh chronicle of your life.

1. Day One

One of the more contemporary-looking options on this list, Day One gives you an easy way to jot down your thoughts and even easier options to sync them with Dropbox.

You can passcode protect your "entries," which appear as a date-based list within the app. Features include reminders, rich text and the ability to star entries.

Day One offers no customization as far as appearance goes, but we'd imagine most people will be more than happy with the default black, white and turquoise color-scheme, the simple layout and clean font.

Cost: $1.99

2. iJournal - Notebook and Journal for iPhone

Simple to use, with a clean design, iJournal is recommended for anyone looking for a no-nonsense, date-based diary app.

Password-protected, the app lets you create diary entries with a title, optional sub-title and space for text.

Customization options include the ability to change the background of the homepage, the background of the entries and to select one of four fonts.

Cost: $1.99

3. Memory Book - Diary & Journal

Although the cheapest app on this list, Memory Book has a few neat features. In addition to creating text-based "memories" (i.e., entries), you can add people, places, keywords and photos to a memory.

The beauty of this system is that you can then review your entries via those tags -- that is, everything you've written about a particular trip, person or event.

We like the app's looks, modern yet with a touch of a classic journal. Syncing is possible between the iPhone and iPad app, as well as the Mac OS X version of Memory Book.

Cost: $0.99

4. My Daily Journal - The Personalized Journal/Diary

An app that emulates the paper diary as far as looks go, My Daily Journal nevertheless offers some good digital features.

These include that all-important password protection, auto-saving, search, PDF export and Dropbox backup.

You can personalize your journal by changing the background (although the parchment-style option above is the only one we liked) as well as by selecting the color of the leather trim. The best bit as far as customization goes is the number of fonts available -- a very healthy selection indeed.

Keeping with the real-life diary theme, you can swipe through entries with a flick of your finger, which is just as well, since the calendar-based index system is not so easy to browse.

Cost: $1.99

5. Memento

The priciest app in our roundup, Momento does at least boast a feature set to justify the extra expense -- especially if you're the social type.

This is because you can hook up feeds from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare and more to integrate items into your diary, giving you a truly digital, content-rich journal.

In addition, you can add photos to each "moment," and there's the ability to both rate and keyword tag your content in order to categorize it for future reference. Good-looking, with stylish faux-wood background and orange highlights, Momemto comes recommended as the journal app for social networking afficianados.

Cost: $2.99

Thumbnail image courtesy of Madzia Bryll

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