Microsoft Journal, a garage project of Microsoft, is now a full-blown app. It is available on the Microsoft Store and intends to revolutionize the digital note-taking and journal-keeping experience. Microsoft announced on Tuesday, April 5th, that the Microsoft Journal Windows app is now fully-functional. It is available for Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.
What is Microsoft Journal app?
Microsoft Journal is a note-taking app specifically designed for devices that support digital pen input. This means all touchscreen devices that work with a stylus can benefit from this new app. Journal app spent a lot of time in Microsoft Garage, which is its sub-brand for experimental projects. The developers released the app on Microsoft Store after fixing the kinks in the app.
Key Features of the Microsoft Journal app
Note-taking apps already exist but Windows devices needed a personalized solution. The idea behind Journal was to create an app that would adapt to the actual style of human note-taking. Microsoft analyzed a lot of data which helped them devise intricate note-taking features to smoothen the process. They also incorporated an AI-driven approach which makes the Journal app better at understanding the gestures
In the official blog post for Microsoft Journal, Stevie Bathiche, Technical Fellow and leader of Microsoft’s said, “We are entering an age of computer-aided reasoning, where AI accelerates the tasks that people do, and makes us all more productive. Journal shows just how powerful an experience can be when software anticipates your intentions. This is just the beginning.”
The main feature is obviously the use of gestures to accomplish small annotation tasks. These gestures minimize the time taken to make changes in the doc. So, you don’t need to switch to another tool to annotate a document. The app lets you do it via stylus gestures. Basic tasks like selecting are doable using gestures, a lasso tool, a dedicated button press, and more. Consequently, the users will be blown away by the fluidity that the Microsoft Journal app offers.
Microsoft Journal also adopts the Windows 11 style design which makes it more alluring to the eyes. Scribbling notes using your stylus on the Surface devices will become more seamless and realistic. Moreover, the Journal app has on-device artificial intelligence which does all the grunt work on the device, to minimize the delay in understanding gestures. Microsoft Journal is only available for devices running Windows 10 and above, and that support digital-pen input.
