First Signs - Nature Journal

First Signs is an app for noting the day you meet a sign of the season. No data collected. A one-time purchase, not a subscription. Halfway through a walk you notice it: the cherry tree has opened, for the first time this year. That moment usually passes without leaving anything behind. First Signs keeps one thing from it — the date. Tap the row for that sign and today's date goes in. That's the whole gesture. [Next year, last year's date sits beside it] A year later, the same row quietly carries "Last year 3/27" underneath. This year it was April 2nd. First Signs won't call it early or late. No charts, no rankings. It just lines the dates up. The longer you keep it, the more the seasons of your own life take shape. [60 signs are already in the app] A United States set of 30 (first robin, crocus, spring peepers, fireflies, cicadas, first frost, first snow and more) and a Japan set of 30 (plum blossom, horsetail shoots, cherry blossom, fireflies, cicadas, fragrant olive and more). You can show one set or both. Hide the ones you don't use, and add your own — "First mow of the lawn," "Acorns on the walk." [Widgets] On your Home Screen it quietly shows "This time last year" or "About time for cicadas." It never scolds you for a day you didn't tap. Seasonal notifications are off until you turn them on, and even then it's at most one a week. [Pricing] Recording, editing and deleting are free forever. This year's sightings are all visible on the free plan. Past years are saved in full on the free plan too — only the display is limited to the three closest to today's date. You can create up to 10 signs of your own. A one-time First Signs Premium purchase opens every past date, the By year screen (each sign's dates laid out year by year in one row), the medium and large widgets, export to a JSON file, iCloud sync, and up to 100 signs of your own. There is no subscription. [Privacy] First Signs never connects to the internet, except to process a purchase and — only if you turn it on — to sync with your own iCloud. No account, no developer server, no ads, and no location tracking — the place field is text you type yourself. Your records live on this device. Only when you turn on iCloud sync are they also kept in the private part of your own iCloud account, where the developer cannot reach them. Importing a JSON backup stays free, so your records survive a phone upgrade (photos are not included in the export). This is not a weather app. No forecasts, and nothing sent anywhere. It just quietly keeps the day you met the season. Why not start with this year's first sign?