ZenJournal
A lightning fast way to store/retrieve your mind.
Was browsing through App Store Connect trying to publish a new version about 10 days ago, and noticed this new section called "Promotional Artwork". Confused. Went to the inbox searching for emails from App Store, and saw this email with subject "Your app, ZenJournal: Minimalist Diary, may be featured on the App Store." filtered with the Unimportant emails from 5 days ago. 😂 And I have two days until the deadline to submit some artwork for a possible feature on the App Store. Frantically downloaded Photoshop trial and submitted something before the day and got an approval email during the day. And then waited for a week with nothing....
Until two days ago, saw a spike of impressions of 35k per day since 4 days ago. Couldn't figure out why cos the app is still not featured with artwork... Thought it is my keyword change with last release. Until last night, when scrolling through the "Apps We Love Right Now" section and found my app...
Anyway, it's not prominently featured in Today or top of the page, it's not even the first scroll of the section, but can't argue with 100+ per day of downloads over the last 4 days. Thankful for that one editor who discovered ZenJournal and fight for it with their editorial group. Hopefully it will eventually come back with a feature that will actually use the submitted artworks.
Started as a Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876939 Currently trending in the Front Page too. This is to launch ZenJournal 2.0 for iOS.
The biggest update is a one of a kind Discreet Mode that allows you to journal comfortably in public spaces. It also added a Lock Mode with TouchID/FaceID support, and a newly revamped dark mode inspired by Superhuman.
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Congrats, great job!
However, a small warning: I'm not sure if posting direct link to HN is allowed.. There was one IH user maybe last week who got his post flagged because of that, if i understood correctly.
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This comment was deleted 6 years ago
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Thanks. It’s a nice bump. But building long term engagement is still the way to go. What worked? Not sure cos I only have one point of data. I tried to share it to other slack communities but that didn’t get much response. A compelling and relevant product hopefully.
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Looks like Dang boosted you 3 times. First from #110 to #20, and then twice more back to the front page. Quietest day of the year + nice no-cloud privacy-focused product probably.
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Wow thanks for that insight. Where can I see that boost record?
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Thanks for sharing! Found an email and turned out it was selected into this secondary pool because the editors (or dang) thinks it deserves more clicks. And then it was randomly boosted to the bottom of the page. Also didn’t know it was the least busy day of the year... where can I find that historical trend info?
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I don't have HN stats, I meant just "overall quietest day for many/most of community and discussion sites" (but a busy day for others, like streaming and media consumption).
I also agree with dang, you deserved the clicks... Next time maybe try something about privacy in the subject, usually goes well in HN.
Good luck
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Much appreciated for the pointers!
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Do you journal or ever interested in journaling? I launched with this ugly old landing page about 6 months ago on PH: https://support.thezenjournal.com/
Over the last month, polished the app and also refreshed the landing page https://thezenjournal.com/ using @ajlkn's amazing Carrd.
Also tried to roughly follow Julian's landing page guide: https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/landing-pages
Would appreciate your feedback, thoughts, hot takes! 🙏
#landing-page-feedback
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I journal from time to time. And I also suggest journaling to my coaching clients from time to time. But I really like the tactile quality of journaling with pen and paper.
As far as I understand, among the benefits of journaling app will be the fact that you don't need to carry the notebooks around and ability to store data in cloud? Or is there anything else I'm missing?
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I like being able to back up my journal in multiple places so that I know I'll never lose it. It's also nice to be able to search for something if you want to read about it.
Most importantly for me though is that I can type much longer, faster, and more comfortably than writing. Sounds like you might be willing to sacrifice that for the experience of pen and paper though.
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I like to write more than type and the speed of both for me is almost the same. So for me, that won't be a decisive factor.
But it great that it work well for you!
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Nothing can beat the fill of pen and paper for sure, I wish I can replicate that, this is my attempt. I think it's not so much as the tactile part but more the lack of distractions (unlike on your smartphone) when faced with the paper. You are left with one/two decision: what to journal and how to journal. ZenJournal is pretty simple and also tries to focus on the core of journaling experience.
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I hope that some eInk device can create experience close to writing with a pen. I've been considering reMarkable for some time, but I think it's quite pricey at the moment.
As for the tactile part, it helps you to activate different areas in your brain. But probably typing can have a similar effect.
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Thanks for the link to the landing page guide!
I agree with the other comments. It's tough to journal on a phone.
On your landing page, it's difficult to read text on a background of the landscape and not a solid color. It doesn't feel very zen-like with all of the text. I would expect something to be very clean with a lot of white space and only the essential words.
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Thanks for the feedback! I'll play with the whitespace and separation of background/screenshots/copy for sure.
Yeah, it's tough to journal on the phone, that's why it needs to be absolutely easy too...😉
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Yes. I journal all the time! I use a pen and paper when possible and my 2nd choice is a desktop computer (with a Kenisis Advantage 2 keyboard).
I never journal on a phone.
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👍What apps/systems do you use for desktop journaling? Have you ever tried phone journaling? What do you not like about it? I had journaled on paper notebooks many years ago and really liked it but I hardly have a chunk of quiet time to just reflect like when I was in college...
I like that I can put my random thoughts into my phone even when I'm on a bus or on a walk, that's why I created this app.-
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I don't like using a phone for journaling because the screen is small, the input is slow, it's harder on the wrists to use. I actually do write in a notebook on public transit sometimes if it's a long trip, but I really don't like short interruptive sessions. I find they hurt more than they help.
On my desktop computer, 99% of the journaling I've done was with WordPress. I have also used Open Office for larger projects and Apple Pages for making short PDF ebooks.
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The screen is smaller, the onscreen keyboard is indeed slower than a physical keyboard. But I have typed more words into Slack and my other chatting apps more than anywhere else. And most of these are done on my phone, so my plan is to optimize this mobile experience and make it simpler and faster. 🙂
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Awesome idea. I think the page is a bit busy... lots and lots of text, particularly in the screenshots which I wasn't sure if I was supposed to read or not. An improvement (looking at your "organize everything with # hashtags" section as an example) might be to keep that heading there but remove all the bullet points, and change the screenshot to an animated screenshot that shows the hashtags feature in action. Just an idea. Also the text is a bit tough to read when it overlaps the part of the background with the stars.
I have been journaling for 5 years using Google Docs. I love the idea of being able to categorize or search for certain things like your hashtag feature. I can't imagine having typed the 500,000 words in my journal on anything but a keyboard though. Do you plan to create a desktop / browser version?
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Thanks for the feedback on the text, it's hard, especially with the busy background. I'd love to use gifs, or make these illustrations so the text from screenshots doesn't distract you from the copy. Or maybe I'll just add a frame to separate it because it's easiest... Someone also suggested using a light background instead, which I will play with too. I'll keep tweaking this. 🙏
Appreciate your sharing of your journaling habits. That's a lot of words! I know it's hard to type on the phone that's why I made this one super fast and easy almost like chatting. Currently do not have any plans for browser because this does not sync to cloud yet, but maybe in the future when there is enough demand.
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I accidentally scheduled for a Monday. Was traveling in China at the point, it didn't get a lot attention in the first half day and fell below the fold, fortunately people were still upvoting it. I didn't follow up with coordinated launch with Reddit and HN. But that's in the plans.
ZenJournal the name came in my dreams. Actually it was between ZenLog, Castle, and ZenJournal...
I couldn't find any. All of them are pretty bloated, too complex, and asks for a journal title.... Why not create one myself, cos, it's a simple app anyway.
18 Comments
Congrats Shaomeng!
Thanks! Nick. 🙏
i was looking forward to https://uptomods.com/ and it didn't let me down awesome i downloaded the app i love
Awesome achievement, congratulations!
Thank you!
Congrats!
🙏
Great news, congratulations!
Thanks! Didn’t expect this but I guess I begged hard enough. 😂
Congrats.
Thanks!
A bit more updates on stats to give you a bit more context: my regular listing impression is around 300 a day on average. The app was probably featured first on Australian App Store and i started seeing 8k and then 30k during a four-day period, before seeing it from the US store. And then when I finally saw it on the US store, my impression peaked at 150k and then now coming down to 50k four days after. Also, since I check that section obsessively after it’s featured multiple times a day. I noticed once it is featured, it doesn’t show up there with every request. Like if you refresh the Apps tab you will see it gone from the section. So I’m guessing the App Store actually have some sort of algorithm that’s applied to ZenJournal that didn’t give it a permanent placement on that section (while other apps like the Moleskine app was there consistently). That also explains why the impression comes down over the four-day period as the frequency of appearance was decreasing and it’s unfeatured from other English speaking stores.
Congrats Shaomeng!
Thanks!!
Well deserved @randomor . Love the dark interface approach.
Thank you! Dark mode first. Now I’m realizing my light mode is kinda ignored all these time so I’ll have to update it sometime soon.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
No just gmail. It’s still there not in the spam but buried by all the other emails.... maybe it’s more my fault of allowing all these other updates related emails coming into my email. It also looks like the other regular App Store connect email cos it’s from the same sender.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
Not in this case. It’s not spam but not important either. It’s just part of Updates category email.