Story behind Huomen

I want to make journaling easy

I have always wanted to be one of those people who keep a journal. But every time I started doing it, I noticed that I couldn't make the habit stick. But I still wanted to go through my days and see what I did on particular days. I often found myself going through my photo library to see what pictures I had taken during the day, or maybe I went through my calendar to see if I had something there.

One habit that I did pick up was to make quick notes through the day. Maybe I saw something that I wanted to revisit, maybe I drove past something interesting and I wanted to look up on it afterwards. I hacked together all kinds of ways to quickly make notes and save my current location. But there was no real system to any of it. And I felt that I wasn't doing journaling properly, with my quick notes and observations. I wanted to build that system. A system that does not expect me to do "serious" journaling (although the app does provide ways of writing down daily reflections). One that focuses on making it quick and easy to add entries, and gives the user the freedom and flexibility to use it as they see fit.

Huomen is the kind of app that I want to use. Maybe it's the kind of app that you want to use. When I built the app, there were some core principles I tried to follow:

1. Respect the user

This is not an app for exploiting the user. The app does not collect your data to sell to data brokers. There are no user accounts to create. Your data is your data; you can freely export it and do with it as you wish. It exists only on your devices and in your iCloud account.

The business idea is simple: If you like the app, you can pay a bit more to get more of the app. Core features are free. If you like what you see and think you might enjoy the extra features, there's a subscription and a lifetime unlock.

2. There's no wrong way of using the app

I admit it: I don't create entries every day. And that's OK. When I turn on optional location tracking, the app records where I've been and shows it on a map. That data exists only on my devices and in my iCloud account. The app also shows me my activities. Those alone go a long way in telling me what I did during the day. Maybe somebody wants to take their entries and use them in some other system, like a PKM system built in Obsidian. That's fine as well; you can export your data in various ways.

3. Give the app some character

I'm one person, not a team with venture capital. I have no shareholders to answer to or growth targets to reach. I'm not planning to "disrupt" anything. This means I'm free to design the app the way I want it to be. If this were a "Serious Business," I would have used focus groups, shoehorned some AI features into the app, and never added support for Apple TV (yes, you can view your journal on an Apple TV) or a theme with 16-bit pixel graphics.

Because I'm one person, I think I'm more receptive to feedback. Have an idea for a feature you would like to see in the app? Send me an email!

And in case you're wondering, "Huomen" is an archaic Finnish word that means "morning" or "tomorrow."

I'm happy with how the app turned out, and I hope you give it a shot.

Have fun!

Janne