BurnJourn

Install

Put it on your home screen before you go.

This is not a growth tactic. Installing is the only thing that actually protects your journal, and it is worth twenty seconds of your time now rather than finding out in October.

Why it matters

Left as an ordinary browser tab, iOS can delete everything this app has stored after about a week of you not opening it. That is a Safari policy for websites, not a bug we can code around — there is no permission a web page can request to opt out of it.

Installing to the home screen moves the app into its own container with its own storage and its own clock. Nothing gets swept up, and it keeps working with no signal at all, which matters because you are going somewhere without any.

The other reason is dumber and just as real: at an event you will not have the bandwidth to download anything. Install it at home, on wifi, while you still can.

Checking what this browser offers…

On an iPhone or iPad

It has to be Safari. Chrome and Firefox on iOS cannot install anything, because Apple requires them to use Safari's engine without this part.

  1. Tap the Share button. It is the square with an arrow coming out of the top, at the bottom of the screen in Safari.
  2. Scroll the list and choose Add to Home Screen. You may have to scroll a fair way down.
  3. Tap Add. Then open it from the home screen icon rather than from Safari, from now on.

On Android

Chrome will usually offer to do this for you. If it has not, do it by hand.

  1. Open Chrome's menu, the three dots in the top right corner.
  2. Choose Add to Home screen, or Install app if it says that instead.
  3. Confirm. Once installed, long-pressing the icon gives you shortcuts straight into pin, voice and photo.

One tap on the back of your phone

iOS can run a shortcut when you tap the back of the phone twice, which gets you into capture mode without unlocking and hunting for an icon. Worth setting up once.

  1. Open the Shortcuts app and make a new shortcut with a single action: Open URL.
  2. Set the URL to https://burnjourn.net/app/?action=capture and give the shortcut a name.
  3. Then go to Settings › Accessibility › Touch › Back Tap, pick Double Tap, and choose your shortcut.

On Android there is nothing to set up: long-press the installed icon and the three capture shortcuts are already there.

Is this phone going to work?

The device check reports what your phone actually supports — storage, microphone formats, vibration, location. If you are helping test this, that page plus a screenshot tells us everything we need to know.

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