Review: Secret Diary for the IPod Touch

What's that old saying? "If you want to be a writer you have to write everyday". Well, Secret Diary for the iPod Touch lets you do just that. No one said it had to be a story or article that had to be written. Secret Diary allows you the opportunity to keep a journal with you all the time. This is convenient if you are stuck at work, angry and need to rant about your stupid coworkers or if you are writing down the adorable thing your baby did when you dropped her off at daycare.

Now for the technical stuff:

Secret Diary has a very easy interface to use. You click the bottom left corner "pen" icon to start a new journal entry. The journal entry screen shows a time stamp at the top and then a page where you can type. The keyboard works in both portrait and landscape mode which is wonderful for those like me who need landscape keyboards.

Secret Diary gives you preloaded templates you can use in the journal entries. These templates are under specific categories; thoughts, travel, pregnancy, baby information and weight loss.

Under the thoughts screen, they are named today, to do, mood, heals and quotations.

Under the travel screen are trip day, location, mood, weather and impressions.

Under the pregnancy screen are Weeks, days, trimester, general state, baby is..., and mother's weight.

Under the baby screen you have age, baby can, teeth, height, weight, and mood.

Under the weight loss screen you get weight, height, target weight, state, and calories.

Under the settings menu, there are several options. One of the most important things here is the backup option. You don't want to lose your stuff. It lets you back up to your email and to a restore file. Next is the restore option should you lose your work. Proceeding down the list and you find the pass code option. This is an absolutely fabulous option for a diary to have. It's hard to spill your guts if you are worried someone will get a hold of it. You can also change text size from small, normal or large. Secret Diary also gives you the option to add sound effects although I have not used this feature as of yet.

Secret Diary has a mapping feature. By this, I mean that you can add where you were when you wrote the entry to the entry itself. It will pull up a map and note your location. This really would only work if you are using an iPhone or typing somewhere with wi-fi.

I have only found one "con" to this application that I'm going to recommend to the developer. If you put the phone in standby mode and then turn it back on, Secret Diary does not prompt for a password. It stays on the journal screen. My recommendation would be to have an auto lock feature to keep it from unwanted eyes.

Secret Diary has everything you need to keep a journal on your iPod Touch or iPhone. For information on how to use Secret Diary please see this article How to use Secret Diary on your iPod Touch.