Privacy Policy

About this policy

This policy explains how the iOS app Frienbead ("the app") handles your data. The app is made and provided by Frienbead ("we", "us").

We can't see what you write

We can't see or access what you write, the names you use or your photos. We don't run any servers that hold your data, and we don't collect personal data that could identify you. The only data that reaches us is the anonymous usage counts described below. (The app also downloads a public settings file, but that request carries no data; see Glowing marbles.)

• No accounts
• No advertising
• No tracking, and we never share or sell data
• No third-party SDKs or third-party analytics services

Where your data lives

The friends you add, the moments you write and the avatar photos you choose are stored on your device and synced through your own private iCloud database (Apple CloudKit) to other devices signed in to the same Apple Account. That data is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy. We can't see it or access it.

If you're not signed in to iCloud, your data stays on this device only. Preferences such as your reminder time and language are also kept on this device only.

Anonymous usage counts

To learn which features people use and what needs work, the app sends anonymous usage counts to our server (frienbead.com), such as “someone shared a month recap card”, “someone changed a jar style” or “someone marked a glowing marble as done”.

What is sent: what kind of thing happened (only from a fixed list built into the app, such as a glowing marble appearing, being marked as done, or a special day reminder being opened), how many times, and on which day (the date only, no time), plus the app version, the app's language and the major iOS version. Some items add a fixed category, such as the kind of jar (friends, family, partner, pets, or “other”, never the jar's name) and the version number of the settings file.

What is never sent: what you record (the content of your marbles, your fields, who a marble is about), names, photos, jar names, any text you type (including the line you write about what you did), which marble is glowing, how many days are left until someone's special day, or personal totals such as how many marbles you have or how many you marked as done. There is no identifier for you or your device: no account, device ID or advertising ID.

Our server only adds up the counts for each day and kind of event. It doesn't keep individual requests or IP addresses; an IP address is used only at the moment a request arrives, to stop floods of fake requests. The counts are never used to track you or combined with other data.

You can turn this off at any time with Share anonymous usage counts in the app's Settings. Once it's off, nothing is sent, and counts not yet sent are deleted.

Face ID / Touch ID

When Face ID Lock is on, authentication is handled entirely by iOS. The app only receives a success or failure result. It never gets or stores your face or fingerprint data.

Photos

To give a friend a photo avatar, or to attach a photo to a marble, you pick a photo with the iOS system photo picker. The app can't browse your photo library. It only saves the photo you picked in your own data, which syncs through your own iCloud. Before a marble's photo is saved, location (GPS) and other photo metadata are removed, and the app never saves photos back to your library.

Translation and read-aloud

If you choose a “Learning language” in Settings, marble translations and read-aloud are done by iOS on your phone (Apple's Translation framework and system voices). What you write is not sent to us or to Apple. The first time you translate into a language, iOS asks you to download it. Apple may collect general usage statistics (such as which language pair was used), which never include the original or translated text and are covered by Apple's privacy policy. Translations are saved in your own data and sync through your own iCloud.

Glowing marbles

Now and then, one of your earlier marbles glows softly, along with a few small ideas for something you could do for that person. Which marble glows and which suggestions you see are decided on your phone. What you wrote is never sent anywhere.

So that the picking rules and the suggested lines can be adjusted later, the app downloads a small settings file from frienbead.com at most once a day. It holds only numbers, switches, word lists and sentence templates, and everyone downloads the same file. The request carries no data: nothing you wrote, no names or photos, no identifier for you or your device, and no cookies. We don't keep a record of downloads. The app doesn't run any code from this file, and if it can't be downloaded the app simply keeps using the settings built into it. You can turn glowing marbles off in Settings, and then the app stops downloading the file too.

Motion sensors

The app reads your phone's tilt and shake on the device so the marbles can roll around the jar. This is used only for what's on screen. It is never stored or sent anywhere.

Notifications

If you turn on the daily reminder, it is scheduled as a local notification on your device. No server is involved.

Special day reminders (a birthday is one kind of special day) work the same way: a few days before a special day, at a fixed time, your device shows a local notification that it scheduled itself. No server is involved. A reminder never contains what you wrote. At most it shows that person's name, the name of the day (such as “Together since”) and says a marble is glowing; if you have Face ID Lock on, it shows neither the name nor the day's name. Special day reminders are always on and have no setting in the app. If you don't want them, turn off notifications for the app in iOS Settings, or turn off reminders for one person on that person's page.

Checking for updates

To let you know when a new version is out, the app asks Apple's public App Store lookup service at most once a day whether a newer version exists. The request contains only the app's bundle identifier and your App Store country or region code (or your device's region if that isn't available). It contains no personal information.

As with any internet connection, Apple sees the IP address the request comes from. That is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy.

In-app purchases

Purchases are processed by Apple. We never receive your payment details. The app reads your purchase status from Apple on your device to unlock what you've bought.

Sharing

Only when you tap Share does the app create an image or a recipe link on your device and hand it to the iOS share sheet. You decide where it goes.

A recipe link (frienbead.com/r/) holds only a jar's rules, such as its name, colors and prompt, never any of your moments. The recipe lives only after the # in the address, and browsers never send that part to our server. So when a link is opened, the website doesn't receive or keep the recipe; the preview is built inside your browser.

Exporting your data

In Settings → Data → Export you can export your data as Excel, CSV or a full backup (with photos). The file is made entirely on your phone and handed only to the place you choose (for example Save to Files or AirDrop). It is never uploaded to our server, and we can't see it. Anonymous usage counts only record that an export happened and its file format, never what is in the file.

Deleting your data

You can delete any friend or any moment in the app. Deletions sync to your other devices too.

To delete everything: delete the app, then go to iOS Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Storage (called Manage Account Storage on some iOS versions), find Frienbead and delete its data.

Children

We don't collect personal data from anyone, including children. The anonymous usage counts the app sends contain nothing that could identify the person using it.

About this website

When you browse frienbead.com, the site uses no cookies, no analytics and loads nothing from third parties. The site, and the server that provides the settings file and receives the anonymous usage counts, are hosted by Cloudflare, which may process standard technical logs such as IP addresses to deliver pages and protect against attacks.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll post the new version on this page and update the effective date above.

Contact

For any privacy question, email privacy@frienbead.com.

Terms of use

The app is provided under Apple's Standard End User License Agreement (EULA).