The Frugal Networker

Quiller (App)
Journaling App for iPad
From Passion to Purpose, LLC.
$1.99 Apple App Store
Follow: @quillerapp

Remember Doogie Howser, MD. pecking away at the end of every episode in the obscure blue-screened word processor to record the day’s thoughts, hopes, and dreams? Sure you do. Primitive wasn’t it? Well, if Doogie inspired you to begin journaling back then but you never did anything about it, let Quiller bring that inspiration into the 21st Century as an iPad app.

When questioned, something to the tune of 85% of all people want to write for publication but sadly, or maybe happily for writers like me, fewer than five percent ever become published in any kind of forum. But you don’t have aspire to be the next Hemingway or James Joyce to enjoy putting your own thoughts down onto electronic paper or into an electronic journal.

You, like many others, can journal for the therapeutic value or for posterity. But whatever your reason for doing it, Quiller can make it easy–far easier than using a word processor or Big Chief tablet. If you know what a Big Chief tablet is, bless you. If not, it has nothing to do with what you call a tablet today. This one is made of paper and has lined pages. I’m pretty sure that it was the substrate onto which many novels and journals were written. I digress.

Quiller is the new genre of journaling. It is a prompt-driven journaling program that helps you collect your thoughts, navigate the app, and even apply an emotion (via emoticon) to the day.

You can create multiple journals, each with a different look, and you can password protect them too–each with a different password, if you prefer. This also means that if you share a single iPad in your family, each of you can have your own password-protected journal. How do you know which journal is yours? You engrave your name on it. Nice.

Figure 1: Creating a new journal.

Oh, and if you forget your journal password, you can have it reset via email, so that you never get locked out of your journal.

To understand what’s meant by “prompt-driven,” refer to Figure 1 that shows you what a new journal looks like when you open it for the first time.

Figure 2: Starting your new journal.

As you can see from Figure 2, there are more prompts once you open your journal and begin or continue writing. My daughter left me a message back in June. Yes, I’ve been a bad boy in not getting this review finished months ago. Apologies all around. Better late than never.

To use the journal, simply follow the on screen prompts. It really couldn’t be any easier than that.

Figure 3: Your Personal Stats Page.

There is a very interesting additional detail that the designers put into Quiller: Personal Stats. To get to your personal stats, go back to the home area by tapping the Home icon in the app. Now tap the Person icon at the top of the screen to see a page similar to that in Figure 3.

The other very cool feature shown on this page is that you can export your journal entries as PDF or TXT files. This is an extremely valuable feature if you ever decide to publish or self-publish your writings.

Quiller, at $1.99, is not the least expensive app on the market but it’s certainly one of the finest that I’ve seen at any price. No ads to bug you or distract you. That’s worth 99 cents all by itself. Remember that any “free” apps that you get will probably have ads and those annoying “In App” purchase prompts.

Remember Quiller is prompt-driven not ad-driven.

Why it’s frugal: Quiller is a quality app that helps you get your thoughts down on “paper.” You might not save a bundle of money by using it but if your writing is good and you stick with it, you could become a published writer, if that’s your thing. Buying a quality product that doesn’t constantly tap you to buy something else is worth something.

Since you can create multiple journals and password protect them individually, you only have to buy Quiller once. That’s pretty frugal.

The only features missing from Quiller are the ability to allow you to write with a stylus–or something other than the keyboard and the ability to embed pictures or graphics either from external sources or from your own scribbles.

Review: 9/10

Recommendation: Buy it and write, write, write.