Day One 2 customer revolt opens the door for competitors

If you’ve been following this blog, you know already that the new version of the Day One journaling app (Day One 2) has caused something of a customer revolt in the Mac and iOS App Stores. Many customers have been giving Day One 2 low star ratings and have posted angry reviews, decrying the lack of DropBox and iCloud syncing.

All of this customer anger and dissatisfaction has opened the door for Day One’s competitors, including the folks who develop the Momento journaling app. Momento currently only runs on the iPhone (an iPad version is coming very soon) and there’s no Mac version available or even in development as far as I know.

But if the Momento developers and other Day One competitors have been paying attention, then they know that they now have a chance to swoop in and steal away a certain percentage of Day One’s customer base.

Here’s a screenshot of some of the angry customer reviews of Day One 2 in the iOS app store:

How a competitor can steal some of Day One’s customers

In order to do win over Day One’s customers there are some things that a competitor must do:

1. Their journaling app must run on iOS and OS X. Many people use both platforms so an iOS version simply isn’t enough. If a journaling app doesn’t also run on the Mac, it will probably not have enough appeal to replace Day One for many users.

2. They must include an import tool for Day One journal entries that works smoothly so that Day One customers can easily make the jump to the new journaling app.

3. Any journal app must sync with iCloud, and preferably with DropBox as well. The lack of iCloud and DropBox syncing is what has angered so many Day One customers, so it’s critical that any competitive app work on both sync services if at all possible.

Beyond the three things I’ve listed here, all Momento or another developer needs to have is a reasonably good journaling app. It doesn’t need to have a zillion amazing features, it just needs to function well for the folks want to write about their lives.

Will Momento and other journaling app developers go after Day One’s customer base?

Despite the opportunity created by the Day One 2 debacle, it remains to be seen if any of its competitors are paying attention. But there’s never been a better time to snag some of the Day One customer base than there is right now. The Day One developers have been inundated with angry tweets and reviews, so the door quite clearly is open for an alternative journaling app to steal away their customers.

However, this opportunity may not last if the Day One developers come to their senses and add iCloud and DropBox syncing back into their journaling app. If that happens then many of the angry Day One customers (like some in this thread on the Apple subreddit) will probably gravitate over to the new version of Day One and forget their initial anger. So Momento and other developers had better move fast if they want to increase their own base of customers.

It will be very interesting to see how this all unfolds. I doubt very much that the Day One developers will add iCloud or DropBox syncing back into their app anytime soon, or perhaps ever. They seem quite obstinate about moving on from those sync services, so a smart competitor could do very well indeed if it moves quickly to take advantage of the situation.

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