PlateDiary on iPhone.

Lock Screen

Quick Snap, straight from the Lock Screen.

Quick Snap is a free widget that opens the camera in one tap. On iPhone it comes in three Lock Screen shapes — circular, rectangular and inline — plus small and medium for the Home Screen. The rectangular one shows your last place, hidden while the phone is locked. The medium Home Screen size adds shortcuts to the Craving wheel, Places and Collections.

1. Touch and hold the Lock ScreenThen tap Customize and choose the Lock Screen.
2. Tap the widget areaFind PlateDiary in the list.
3. Pick a Quick Snap shapeCircular for a shutter button, rectangular to see your last place.
4. Tap DoneFrom now on the camera is one tap from a locked phone.

iPhone only

Table · Plate · Dish.

On iPhone the camera has a lens strip with three words instead of zoom numbers: Table for the whole spread, Plate for one serving, Dish for a close-up. Words, because exact zoom levels differ from one iPhone to the next. The lens strip is iPhone only.

Cut-outs

Cut-outs on iPhone.

The cut-out runs on the phone with Apple’s Vision, in about a second, with no connection. If you have ever touched and held a photo to lift its subject out, it is the same idea — but for every dish on the table at once, each one becoming its own save, filed under the place and the night. If a dish gets missed, the cut-out editor lets you draw around it, tap it, or use a shape.

Backups

A safe copy in your own iCloud Drive.

Every day PlateDiary makes a backup on the phone. On iPhone it also copies it to a PlateDiary folder in your own iCloud Drive, visible in the Files app. It is on by default and keeps the two newest copies. If iCloud is signed out, Settings says so and nothing is written. To restore, choose Restore from a file and pick the copy from iCloud Drive. There is no PlateDiary account involved.

Widgets

Widgets on iPhone.

Without the app

Cut out food with what’s already on your iPhone.

That works well for one dish. What it doesn’t do is keep the place, the night or the people — which is where a food journal comes in. More in how to cut out food from a photo.

• Open the photo in Photos and touch and hold the dish until a glow runs around its edge.
• Let go and choose Copy or Share, then paste it into Messages, Notes or a collage app.
• If it won’t lift, try a photo with a clear edge between dish and table, good light, and plates that don’t overlap.
• One subject at a time: Photos lifts the main subject, so a crowded table may need a crop first.

Both phones

What’s the same on Android.

Everything else: the camera, cut-outs, moments, Places, Companions, the map (Apple Maps on iPhone, Google Maps on Android), Premium and PlateDiary AI. PlateDiary is an iPhone app, not an iPad app. See PlateDiary on Android for the differences the other way.