How to use Jiyu

Take in a color收色

Every day starts empty. Take in a color from something near you.

The main screen

# Pull the card down
Drag the Today card down and the camera opens. Push it back up to return.
# Or tap the colored squares
Tap the colored squares at the top of the screen.
# Or knock the phone
Tilt the phone back, then knock its bottom edge against your palm.

Turn it on first: Menu → Preferences → Lean and knock.
# Or use the Action Button
Settings → Action Button → Controls → Gather Color. You can add it to Control Center too.
# Or ask Siri
Say “Gather today’s color in Jiyu”.

A photo, a name or a poem相機 · 題字 · 詩

Besides photos, you can give the day a name or write it a poem.

With the camera open

# Swipe sideways to switch
Or tap Camera, Title or Poem under the buttons. A small dot shows where you are.
# Title and Poem open a little later
Title opens after your first photo, Poem on your third day. Tap one to open it early.
# A shortcut to naming the day
Hold your finger on the colored squares for a moment.
# Taking the photo
Tap the round button, or press a volume button. Pinch the picture, or tap 1×, to zoom. The button on the left brings in a photo you already have.

Your colors顏色

Jiyu picks colors from each photo. You decide which ones stay.

The desk

The seal, opened

# Change a photo’s colors
On the desk, tap the color dots under a photo. Each photo keeps up to two.
# Choose the day’s four
Tap the small seal at the bottom. It holds the day’s four colors. Tap a color to put it in.
# Put a color in a certain spot
Press and hold a color, then drag it onto one of the four.
# Gather similar colors
Pinch the row of colors together, or give the phone a shake. Pinch apart to undo.

#How colors are picked from a photo

Yellow blossoms against a blue sky — What Jiyu takes from this photo, in its own order. The first two are kept to start: the quiet grey the day sat in, and the sky. The yellow and the dark bark wait beside them, one tap away.

Jiyu looks at a small copy of your photo, on your phone. Nothing is sent anywhere, and there’s no AI involved.

It sorts every dot into two kinds: quiet ones (greys, whites and shadows, the air the day sat in) and colorful ones.

The quiet dots are grouped by how light they are. The two biggest groups become the photo’s grounds.

The colorful dots are grouped by hue, so a leaf in sun and the same leaf in shade stay one green. The three biggest groups become its accents, and each is taken from its most vivid part: the pink you noticed, not that pink mixed with the wall behind it.

A color smaller than a speck, about half a percent of the photo, is left out.

That gives up to five colors, the main ground first and the main accent second. Those two are kept to start with, and you can change them.

The same photo always gives the same colors.

#How a poem finds its colors

For now, Jiyu reads a poem with a word list: about a hundred words that carry a traditional Chinese color, in Chinese and in English.

月 moon
楓 maple
桃 peach
海 sea
苔 moss
墨 ink

Each word it finds gives its color, in the order the words appear, up to six. When you open the poem, those words are inked in their colors.

A poem with no color words is ink on paper.

It’s a simple list, not real reading, and we’d like it to feel a whole poem one day. Until then, if you want a color, write its word into the poem.

Your photos案頭

Everything you took today lies on one desk.

The main screen

The desk

# See them all
Tap the little pile of photos on the Today card.
# Look at them one by one
Tap a photo, then swipe left or right.
# Look closer
Use two fingers to lift and turn a photo. Let go and it settles back.
# Take one away
Press and hold it, then choose Remove.

#Where your photos are kept

Jiyu keeps its own copy of every photo you give it, so deleting a photo from your Photos library doesn’t take it out of Jiyu.

When you take a photo in Jiyu, the full-size photo goes into your Photos library, and Jiyu keeps a smaller copy, up to 2048 pixels on its long side. If Jiyu isn’t allowed to add to Photos, it keeps the full-size photo itself.

When you bring in a photo from your library, Jiyu keeps only the smaller copy.

The smaller copy is plenty for looking and sharing, but it isn’t full size. Once the original is deleted from Photos, it’s all that’s left.

Your photos stay on this phone; they don’t sync through iCloud. A backup of your phone, or Quick Start to a new one, brings them along. Setting up a new phone from scratch doesn’t.

Look back at the day回看

In the evening, watch your day play back, and share it if you like.

The desk

The seal, opened

# Open it
On the desk, tap the small seal, then Look back at the bottom.
# Choose how to look back
Swipe between three: the day as you lived it, the photos one by one, or the day’s four colors. Watch it, or save it as a video.
# Stop a video new
While a video is being written, tap its button to stop.
# Move along
Tap anywhere for the next thing.
# Share it
At the end, tap the card to send it.
# Leave
Swipe in from the left edge. While you watch, the back arrow in the corner returns to the three looks; on the looks, × closes Look back.

Gentle reminders暮邀 · 光邀

Jiyu can ask you back, at most once a day.

# An evening invitation
Menu → Preferences → Invite me back. Choose dusk, later at night, the next morning, or a time of your own.
# Before sunset
Menu → Preferences → An hour before sunset. It only comes on days you haven’t taken anything yet.

Earlier days曆

Every day you kept is still there.

The main screen

# Open the month
Swipe left on the main screen, or tap the calendar at the top right.
# Go day to day
Swipe the day card under the month.
# Faded days
Older days look faded until you buy the Almanac. They are never deleted.

Little things小事

A few quiet touches, if you want to find them.

The main screen

# The menu
Swipe right on the main screen, or tap ≡ at the top left.
# The season’s name
Tap the two characters at the top to read about the season you’re in.
# Has the sun passed noon? new
While the camera is open, the season’s name at the top turns into today’s light: a small curve from sunrise to sunset, with the sun where it stands now.
# Tilt the phone
The colors pour gently to the low side. It needs Lean and knock turned on.
# A quiet screen
Tap empty paper to leave only the day’s seal. Its shadow tells the time. Tap again to come back.
# Sound new
Jiyu answers your touch with quiet sounds of paper, wood and stone. The ring switch silences them, or turn them off: Menu → Preferences → Sound.