Why speak instead of write?

Talking is quicker than typing. It needs no keyboard, no spelling and no small buttons. Parkinson's can make handwriting small and typing slow, and for many people living with it, and for many older adults, speaking is the easier way to keep a diary at all.

I began building Shaterian because Parkinson's was slowly taking away my memory, my orientation, and pieces of who I am. My letter, Why I'm building this, tells the rest.

How to keep a voice diary in Shaterian

1. Open Shaterian and tap Today at the bottom of the screen.
2. Tap Tell me your story and talk. Your words appear under it as you speak. There is no need to hold the button down, so take as long as you like.
3. When you have finished, tap the button again: it now says Tap when you're done. What you said is saved as a memory.

If you would rather type, tell Smith instead: type it in the box on his screen, and it is kept as a memory too.

What happens to what you say

• It becomes text on your iPhone. Your iPhone turns your voice into text on the phone itself wherever it can. On the rare occasion it cannot, for some languages or before iOS has fetched what it needs, Apple's own speech recognition does it instead.
• The words are kept, not the recording. Shaterian does not keep the audio.
• It is filed for you. Each memory is tagged with the people, places, themes and feelings in it and added to your Memory Universe. There is nothing to organise and no forms to fill in.
• You can change it. If a word came out wrong, open the memory in the Memory Universe and tap the pencil to change what it says.

Where your diary is kept

On your iPhone. There is no account to create and no password to remember, and there is no server of ours for your diary to go to. Nothing is sold, nothing is used for advertising, and nothing is used to train anything.

If you have more than one iPhone, you can switch on Sync with iCloud. It is off unless you turn it on. Your memories, but not your health notes, are then kept in your own iCloud, and memories you add or remove on one iPhone reach the others. The privacy policy lists everything that ever leaves the phone, and when.

Reading it back, and asking about it

Your memories gather in the Memory Universe: the people, places and themes that come up most often, drawn as a constellation. Tap any point to read the memories behind it. The Map of Life shows the places in them on a globe.

Or ask: “When did I last go to the harbour?” Smith, the companion inside Shaterian, answers from your own memories and shows which ones he used. Ask your own memories explains how.

What goes into the summary

• How your body has felt. In Health, tap a spot on the body, choose what it is and how strong it feels, and save it. The summary lists these notes, grouped and dated.
• Your medication. The doses you have logged. Parkinson's doses, ON or OFF shows how to log them.
• Apple Health readings, only if you have connected Apple Health. Shaterian only reads Health; it never writes to it.

The summary says on the page that these are self-recorded notes, not a diagnosis.

How to make it

1. Open Shaterian and tap Health.
2. Scroll to Summary for your doctor and tap Make the summary.
3. Shaterian lays out the PDF on your iPhone and opens the share sheet. From there you can print it, email it, send it in a message or save it to Files.

What it does not do

• It does not send anything on its own. The summary is not a link, and it does not go to your doctor by itself. It goes only where you send it.
• It does not interpret. It does not look for trends or say whether a treatment is working. It reports what you noted, where and when, and leaves the meaning to you and your doctor.
• It is not a diagnosis. Shaterian is not a medical device. Questions about diagnosis, dosage or whether to change a treatment are turned back to your own care team.

Getting the most from it

• Note things on the day they happen. A note made at the time is more use than one remembered weeks later.
• Log doses as you take them, with how you feel.
• Make the summary a day or two before the appointment, and read it through yourself first.

What you can ask

Ask the way you would ask a person, out loud or typed. For example:

• “Tell me about Reza.”
• “When did I last go to the harbour?”
• “What's changed lately?”

Where the answers come from

Answers about your life come only from what you have given Shaterian: the memories you have spoken or typed, the photographs and workouts you chose to bring in, and files such as PDFs, Word documents and photographs of pages, each kept whole and searchable. Smith does not know what you have not told him.

To see the memories an answer came from, press and hold the answer. Then you can read them for yourself.

When the answer is not there

He says so. An answer about your own life is only worth having if it is true, so Smith does not fill the gaps with guesses. If nothing you have told him answers the question, he tells you plainly.

With and without Apple Intelligence

On iPhones with Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later, with Apple Intelligence turned on), Smith writes the answer in sentences, drawn from your memories. On other iPhones he tells you how many of your memories match and who is in them, and lists them under the answer. Either way, you can read the memories themselves.

Questions about the wider world, beyond your own life, need Apple Intelligence.

What's changed

In the Twin room, the What's changed tab compares this month with the month before, in plain sentences: how many memories you kept, which people and places came up more, less or for the first time, and the feeling that came up most. You can also ask Smith, “What's changed lately?”

What he will not do

Smith does not give medical advice. Questions about diagnosis, dosage or whether to change a treatment are recognised and turned back to your own care team, rather than answered by a model.

Your memories are kept on your iPhone, and that is where Smith reads them. If you switch on Sync with iCloud, they are kept in your own iCloud too. There is no account and no server of ours.

ON and OFF, briefly

Stanford Medicine's Parkinson's pages describe ON as the time when medication is working and symptoms are under control, and OFF as the time when symptoms come back: in the morning before the first dose, or between doses during the day. OFF can come on gradually or suddenly. What your own ON and OFF times mean is a question for your neurologist.

How to log a dose

1. Open Shaterian and tap Health.
2. Under Medication, tap Mark dose taken when you take it.
3. Then answer How do you feel right now?: ON (moving well) or OFF (slow / stiff). That is all.

Once you have logged a dose, Today shows how many you have logged so far.

Reminders for your pills

Ask Smith, the companion inside Shaterian, to set a reminder or a routine for your pills: “Remind me to take my tablets at 8.” He proposes it, and once you say yes, the reminder arrives as a notification on your iPhone.

Taking it to your appointment

The doses you have logged are part of the Summary for your doctor, a PDF of the last 90 days that you can print, email or hand over.

What it does not do

• It does not advise on doses, timing or whether to change a treatment. Questions like these are recognised and turned back to your own care team.
• It does not diagnose, and it does not judge how well a medication is working. It records what you logged.
• Shaterian is not a medical device.