u/redittaccount

Hey r/SideProject — I'm the maker of Orijournal (orijournal.app), a small journaling app I've been building as a side project, and I wanted to share the story and get some honest feedback rather than pitch anything.

The short version of why I started: I kept bouncing between note apps and paper notebooks and never stuck with either. Paper felt calming but wasn't searchable; most apps felt like productivity tools that turned reflecting into another chore with streaks and nags. I wanted something quieter — open it, write, close it — that still let me look back easily.

A few things I ran into while building it that might be useful if you're working on something similar:

\\- Deciding what to leave out was harder than deciding what to add. Every feature I removed made the daily habit easier to keep.

\\- Sync and local storage was the part I most underestimated. Getting entries to feel instant and reliable across devices took far longer than the writing experience itself.

\\- I dropped streaks and guilt-based reminders on purpose. For a journaling habit they seemed to backfire for me, but I'm genuinely unsure if others feel the same.

What I'd love feedback on:

\\- If you journal digitally, what actually keeps you coming back versus what makes you quit an app?

\\- Does the no-streaks / low-pressure approach appeal to you, or do you need some nudge to stay consistent?

\\- Anything about the onboarding or first-run experience that tends to make or break these apps for you?

Happy to answer anything about the build, the tech choices, or the design trade-offs. Not trying to sell anyone on it — mostly want to hear how other people think about the journaling-habit problem. Thanks for reading.

Hi all — I'm the maker of Orijournal (orijournal.app), an iOS journaling app I've been building, and I'm looking for a few testers who actually journal (or want to) to try it and tell me where it falls short.

What it is: a quiet, minimalist place to write. Open it, write, close it. No streaks, no guilt-trip reminders, no productivity-dashboard clutter — just your entries with easy searching and looking back. The bet is that low pressure keeps people journaling longer; testing whether that actually holds is where I need help.

Who I'm hoping to hear from:

- People who already journal (digitally or on paper) and have opinions about what works.

- People who've tried and quit journaling apps — I especially want to know why you stopped.

What I'm looking for feedback on:

- First-run experience: does it get out of your way fast, or is there friction before you can just write?

- Whether the no-streaks / no-reminders approach helps you or makes you drift away.

- Anything confusing, slow, or annoying about the writing and reviewing flow.

Happy to answer questions about the app, sync, or the design decisions. If you try it and hate something, that's exactly the feedback I want. Thanks!

Hi all — I'm the maker of Orijournal (orijournal.app), a journaling app I've been building, and I'm looking for a few testers who actually journal (or want to) to try it and tell me where it falls short.

What it is: a quiet, minimalist place to write. Open it, write, close it. No streaks, no guilt-trip reminders, no productivity-dashboard clutter — just your entries with easy searching and looking back. The bet is that low pressure keeps people journaling longer; testing whether that actually holds is where I need help.

Who I'm hoping to hear from:

- People who already journal (digitally or on paper) and have opinions about what works.

- People who've tried and quit journaling apps — I especially want to know why you stopped.

What I'm looking for feedback on:

- First-run experience: does it get out of your way fast, or is there friction before you can just write?

- Whether the no-streaks / no-reminders approach helps you or makes you drift away.

- Anything confusing, slow, or annoying about the writing and reviewing flow.

Happy to answer questions about platforms, sync, or the design decisions. If you try it and hate something, that's exactly the feedback I want. Thanks!

[supprimé]

Our macs and iphones have gotten so powerful that they can transcribe and clean up your speech right on the device, and yet I was paying $15 a month. So I put my software engineering background to work and built jot-transcribe. It runs on nvidia's cutting-edge open-source models, entirely on-device, and it's free.

Dictating by voice unlocks our mind to access more thoughts. You get more of your thoughts out, and the friction in just thinking drops. Some of you probably know the feeling. My problem: I'm not a native english speaker, so what came out was grammatically messy and all over the place but captured my raw thought. The AI cleanup pane in wispr flow and similar apps fixed that, and that was the part I actually wanted, just not the monthly bill. So I built it into jot.

On Mac:

1. 25 languages (I've mostly used english).
2. Hotkey to start. Works in any app, and uses what's on your screen as context.
3. AI cleanup, with prompts and custom voice with a hotkey.

On iPhone:

1. English first, for now.
2. A keyboard. Dictate from it in any app.
3. Indexes your transcripts, so you can find them later with apple intelligence.

Details:
- Product name: Jot-Transcribe
- Platform: macOS and iOS
- Supported devices: iPhone 14 Pro and newer; Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 and later).
- Normal price: Free and open-source (MIT). Comparable apps run ~$15/mo.
- Free deal duration: Free forever. no subscription.
- How to claim: Download free at jot-transcribe.com
- Feedback required: No, but welcome.
- Expiration date: None.
- Limits: None.

If you try it, I'd like your feedback: any bugs you hit, anything that could be simpler, features you'd want added, and how well it works in languages other than english.

PS: I'm a software engineer with 15 years of experience.

Dictating by voice unlocks our mind to access more thoughts. You get more of your thoughts out, and the friction in just thinking drops. Some of you probably know the feeling. My problem: I'm not a native english speaker, so what came out was grammatically messy and all over the place but captures my raw thought. The AI cleanup pane in wispr flow and similar apps fixed that, and that was the part I actually wanted, just not the monthly bill. So I built it into jot.

On Mac:

1. 25 languages (I've mostly used english).
2. Hotkey to start. Works in any app, and uses what's on your screen as context.
3. AI cleanup, with prompts and custom voice with a hotkey.
4. Vocabulary, coming soon.

On iPhone:

1. English first, for now.
2. A keyboard. Dictate from it in any app.
3. Indexes your transcripts, so you can find them later with apple intelligence.

Please let me know if you are interested. I have added the links in the comments. I would love your feedback.
Ps I am a software engineer with 15 years of experience.