Comparison

Shortwave vs Impression Journal

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Shortwave

This AI-powered email client streamlines your inbox with intelligent organization, writing assistance, and team collaboration tools. It helps you manage emails, schedule meetings, and turn messages into actionable tasks, all while learning your unique style.

Highlights
  • AI-powered email writing and drafting
  • Intelligent inbox organization and clutter removal
  • Real-time team collaboration and email assignment
  • AI-assisted meeting scheduling
  • Email to-do list conversion
  • Customizable AI prompts and automations
  • Management of multiple Gmail accounts
Read full description

AI-NATIVE EMAIL FOR BUSINESS "The AI revolution is coming for your email" – Business Insider "This app is like ChatGPT for your email, and it changed my life" – Digital Trends "The Google Inbox successor I’ve been waiting for" – The Verge YOUR AI EMAIL ASSISTANT Supercharge your productivity with advanced AI & real-time team collaboration. Write emails, improve drafts, schedule meetings, analyze threads, translate text, and more using Shortwave’s powerful AI Assistant. ORGANIZE YOUR INBOX WITH AI With 1-tap, Shortwave’s AI Assistant can identify urgent emails, group threads into todos, and sweep away the remaining clutter so you can get to inbox zero with zero effort. SHARE & DISCUSS EMAILS WITH YOUR TEAM Get the right people involved and bring everyone up to speed fast with private team comments and live thread sharing. Assign emails to teammates to delegate next steps. WRITE EMAILS WITH AI Write personalized emails with AI in seconds, or use instant AI replies to get full drafts in just one tap. Shortwave learns your unique writing style and even facts about you from the emails you send. IMPROVE AND PROOFREAD DRAFTS Complete your drafts, adjust length and tone, translate into other languages, and more with a built-in AI editor. SEARCH AND FIND ANSWERS Use AI-powered search to find emails fast, or to analyze your entire team's emails & attachments for the answers you need SCHEDULE MEETINGS WITH AI Spend less time juggling calendars with AI-powered scheduling features. Create events, send AI-generated scheduling emails, accept calendar events with one click, and more. GET ORGANIZED WITH SPLITS AND BUNDLES Focus your time & attention by dividing your inbox into tabs for important emails, specific senders, labels & even custom queries. Use bundles for fast triage of promotions, newsletters, updates, and other automated emails. TURN EMAILS INTO TODOS Transform your overflowing inbox into an organized list of action items. Group, rename, prioritize, and add notes, right in your inbox. SET DELIVERY SCHEDULES Avoid interruptions by deferring when emails arrive in your inbox, so you only receive emails when you want them. VIEW READ STATUSES See when people read your emails to get the context you need to prioritize your time and write effective follow-ups. Close more deals and collaborate better with your team. SCREEN UNWANTED SENDERS Guard your inbox from noise with one-click block and unsubscribe. FINE-TUNE PUSH NOTIFICATIONS Granular push controls let you minimize distractions with personalized alerts for specific senders and types of emails. CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING Customize AI prompts and automate your team’s work with AI Snippets & AI Automations. Adjust tons of details in settings, and make Shortwave yours with custom colors and beautiful light & dark modes. MANAGE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Organize all of your Gmail accounts from one app and seamlessly switch between them in a single swipe. SYNCS WITH GMAIL Migrate seamlessly to Shortwave from your existing Gmail or Google Workspace account with all of your labels, filters, and other settings imported. If you have questions or want to learn more about Shortwave and best practices, you can find resources here: https://www.shortwave.com/docs/

About

Impression Journal

Capture fleeting thoughts, people, or observations and automatically link them to their location and time. Add photos, organize into folders, and revisit your memories on a map or timeline. Syncs seamlessly across devices.

Highlights
  • Location-aware note-taking
  • Add photos to entries
  • Organize notes into folders
  • Map and timeline view
  • Home screen widget
  • Apple Watch companion app
  • iCloud syncing
Features
Read full description

WHAT IS IMPRESSION JOURNAL? Impression Journal is a fast, flexible way to capture the small stuff — a person you just met, a bird or flower you spotted, an idea passing through your head — and tie it to a place and a moment in time. Create an Impression with a name, a short description, and hashtags, and Impression Journal automatically timestamps and locates it for you. Prefer to talk? Just ask Siri for a "Quick Impression" to jot something down instantly, or a step-by-step "New Impression" to add notes and tags. More features: * Add a photo to any Impression * File Impressions into folders * Browse everything by Recents, Tags, Places, or Search * See all your Impressions plotted on a map * Track repeat encounters with an Impression as a timeline of sightings * Add a widget to your home screen to see nearby Impressions, filtered by folder and hashtags * Set up custom notifications to alert you when Impressions are nearby (full version only) * Everything syncs automatically over iCloud * Companion Apple Watch app allows you to capture a thought without pulling out your phone Whether you're putting names to faces at a conference, remembering the code for your storage unit, or just catching an idea before it slips away, Impression Journal keeps a searchable, location-aware record of the little things you'd otherwise forget.

Screenshots

Impression Journal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shortwave at none against Impression Journal's 1. Shortwave also leads on ratings volume (749 vs 1) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). Impression Journal's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.7). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Impression Journal sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Shortwave asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Impression Journal holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Shortwave has 749 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Shortwave ships an update every 3 weeks, Impression Journal every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Shortwave versus Impression Journal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShortwaveImpression Journal
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (749 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews65.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings749 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
Requires iOS14.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size26 MB50 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShortwave Communications, Inc.tApps

Customer experience

Shortwave

All ratings659 ratings
Positive95.1%
Neutral1.8%
Negative3.0%
Written reviews211 reviews
Positive65.4%
Neutral10.9%
Negative23.7%

Impression Journal

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Shortwave

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Unreliable email bundling and threading
  • Inconsistent performance and stability issues
  • Bugs with email forwarding and attachment handling

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for more email providers
  • Improve iPad and tablet optimization
  • Enhance customization options for labels and actions
  • Integrate with more productivity apps and services
  • Provide better transparency around data usage and privacy

Impression Journal

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Shortwave

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Impression Journal

One-time1
  • Full Version$4.99

Questions

Is Shortwave free?
Shortwave is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Impression Journal free?
Impression Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Shortwave or Impression Journal?
Impression Journal is rated higher. Shortwave averages 4.7 out of 5 from 749 ratings, while Impression Journal averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Shortwave or Impression Journal have ads?
Neither Shortwave nor Impression Journal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Shortwave or Impression Journal?
Shortwave ships an update every 3 weeks, and Impression Journal every 2 months. Most recently, Shortwave was updated on October 22, 2026 and Impression Journal on October 14, 2026.

Other comparisons