This new iPadOS 26 app has actually impacted how I set up my ideas

There are lots of charms value celebrating in iPadOS 26, like a brand new design language, a vastly improved windowed multitasking expertise, and an precise Preview app for upcoming paperwork and studying PDFs. The brand new function that is caught me abruptly, although, is Apple’s Journal app. It stays a stripped-down tackle a private journaling instrument, however a extremely compelling expertise you probably have an iPad and an Apple Pencil.

Apple launched Journal as an iOS-exclusive in iOS 17, and is lastly opting to convey the app to the iPad and Mac with this yr’s software program updates. The app has been tweaked to suit these totally different display sizes and consists of a number of enhancements over the iOS 18 model, however I’ve discovered the iPad-specific modifications to make it a really must-use app, and a reasonably nice illustration of what a pill app could be.

The Journal app can faucet into every part you do on or along with your cellphone

Apple is betting huge on its API

The Journal app launched on iOS 17 as a comparatively stripped-down expertise. It was primarily targeted on textual content entries, although it additionally supplied the choice so as to add a photograph or an audio recording when you needed to. Apple’s huge concept with the app was its Journaling Options API, which might faucet into apps and the stuff you use them for, and use that to counsel issues you need to write about. With the corporate’s personal apps, Journal can counsel an entry primarily based off a playlist you listened to on Apple Music, or areas you visited primarily based on Apple Maps information, or a photograph you took.

Third-party apps can incorporate the API into their apps to make their app actions develop into ideas, so Journal might additionally counsel you write a few latest exercise or a podcast you listened to. The worry on the time was that Apple was successfully cloning and eliminating apps like Day One by providing one thing comparable at no cost. For essentially the most half, that hasn’t performed out, notably as a result of Apple spent some time bringing the app to its different gadgets.

As the middle of most individuals’s digital lives, the iPhone works effective as a journaling instrument, or at the very least the factor that prompts journaling. When you truly attempt it, although, I believe it makes far much less sense. Typing on one thing so small feels bizarre when paired with the thoughtfulness journaling requires. The iPhone can be much more distracting than an iPad or Mac . And as somebody who’s tried to maintain handwritten journals a number of instances over my life, textual content typing with the iOS Journal app did not appear proper.

iPadOS 26 combines the iPad, Apple Pencil, and the Journal app collectively

Handwritten entries and a number of journals make all of the distinction

My curiosity in handwriting my entries is explicitly catered to by the iPadOS model of the Journal app, which, amongst its different modifications, gives full Apple Pencil help. All of the options of Apple’s stylus and its PencilKit software program are included, even the automated spellcheck and handwriting cleanup options the corporate launched in iOS 18. In my transient time making an attempt the function out through the public beta, it is made an enormous distinction to the way it feels to make use of the Journal app and I enormously favor it.

Writing feels extra intentional than typing, for one factor, and forces me to consider what I am making an attempt to place down on digital paper. The app’s help for a number of totally different journals additionally means I can cut up up entries primarily based on subject — I nonetheless preserve a sporadic dream journal, which now will get its personal part — one other significant high quality of life enchancment. The model of Journal on iPadOS 26, iOS 26, and macOS 26 simply feels way more just like the app Apple ought to have launched from the start.

The massive drawback I’ve run into up to now is that efficiency on my fifth-generation iPad Air (working an M1 chip) is way from splendid. I will be capable of write easily and with out situation for paragraphs at a time, however when an entry will get lengthy sufficient, issues begin to lag. The Journal app will register one letter of a phrase and takes a number of seconds earlier than it truly shows that I’ve written the remaining. My iPad additionally will get concerningly scorching throughout this whole course of. I am pretty assured all of this may be blamed on this being beta software program, however it’s the one factor that is dimmed what’s in any other case been a greater than enthusiastic reception.

Apple gadgets have separate use-cases

They’re all screens, however they’re all distinctive

The massive concept behind the brand new Liquid Glass design language and all of Apple’s working system updates this yr, is that if the corporate’s merchandise are extra comparable to one another, they will be simpler to grasp. In the event you perceive methods to use an iPhone, you need to be capable of navigate an iPad or a Mac. Apple has pushed on this concept in years previous, however iPadOS 26 actually brings issues to a head by lifting components straight from macOS (the “stoplight” buttons within the high left nook, for instance).

I believe the Journal app is an efficient reminder that some gadgets are higher at some issues than others. The iPad can run the identical apps as all of Apple’s different merchandise, however they need to really feel distinct and a few of them ought to really feel higher. You may attempt the brand new model of Journal app for your self by downloading one of Apple’s public betas. In the event you’re enthusiastic about extra methods an iPad can match into your life, it actually does excel at some specific tasks.