Apple Watch Journal

As you may have guessed from our name, Happyfeed aims to create a place on your digital devices that fosters genuine happiness. When we started to plan out an Apple Watch app, we wanted to further that goal by answering the question, “How could looking at your watch spark a bit of joy?”

Today I’m excited to announce the launch of our new Apple Watch app. It aims to take a few of the best features of Happyfeed and repackage them in a novel way that’s more accessible right on your wrist.

How could looking at your watch spark a bit of joy?

Happiness Jar

Nothing sparks joy as naturally or simply as the Happiness Jar. Looking through dozens, hundreds, or thousands of your past moments is the best way to remind yourself that life really is wonderful. It’s no surprise that the Happiness Jar is one of the most popular features of Happyfeed, but unfortunately, it’s also one of the most overlooked. It’s always been a challenge to find intuitive ways to fit it into your daily habit.

Using the Happiness Jar in our watch app is a lot like the iOS version. Tap the "Happiness Jar" button to open it up and then simply swipe left or tap the "shuffle" button to see new memories. There's even a "back" button in case you swipe too fast and miss one of your favorite moments.

We think you’ll love how accessible it is when you can swipe and tap to see happy memories right from your Apple Watch. If you have data access, you don’t even need your phone nearby to shuffle through your Happiness Jar.

Track Your Mood

Gratitude journaling teaches you that there are positive moment and things to be grateful for in any day, but some days are naturally going to stand out from the others. In the app you can “heart” a day to tag it as a favorite and select an emoji to make a more memorable note about that day. Your evening hike up a mountain might earn the 🏔emoji and you might put a 💕 emoji on your anniversary. It’s meant to be a quick way to know what makes any day special.

Since they are quick ways to recognize your day, we thought these features were perfect as actions in the watch app. Next time you feel that boost of serotonin from a big promotion or endorphins from finishing a challenging hike, you’ll be able to make a note from your Apple Watch.

To tag your day, you can tap the “Today” button in our watch app to see an overview of the current day. Here you'll have the option to toggle a heart to “favorite” the day or tap the smiley icon to select an emoji. The emoji picker will open up the keyboard which will only accept emoji values. You can reset the emoji by tapping the button again and selecting the prefill "Remove emoji" option.

As a bonus, if you add our “Day Overview” complication to your Apple Watch face, you’ll notice that it automatically updates to show any emoji you picked for the day.

Writing Journal Entries

Audio and voice are increasingly becoming less of a novelty and more of a mainstream way to use our devices. We thought that it might feel silly to try and type out a journal entry on your watch, but a voice note might make perfect sense. In a future version of the Apple Watch app, we plan to explore ways to send voice notes right into the iOS app that you could pin to your moments or use as inspiration while reflecting more deeply on your day.

Feedback and Ideas

The Apple Watch is becoming a mature product but we think that there’s still room to invent intuitive and unique experiences. We want to make our watch app more than just a watered-down version of the iOS app. It’s an opportunity to create experiences even further beyond anything a paper journal can do. If you have some thoughts, ideas, or examples of how we might expand our thinking around what a watch can do, please reach out!

As always, thanks so much for following along and helping us make a positive journal that’s built to bring you decades of joy ✨