We never see your pages.

• No account, no ads, no tracking. We don't sell or share data, and we don't follow you across other apps or sites.
• Your pages stay yours. Ink, text, photos and voice notes are kept on your device and in your private iCloud. We can't open them.
• Read on the device. Handwriting, voice notes, math and the blots are worked out on your iPhone or iPad.
• Anything that goes further goes straight there. Private Cloud Compute, maps, weather, link previews and Wikipedia are reached from your device, never through us. Some only happen if you turn them on.
• Usage counts are off unless you turn them on, and never include anything you write.

On your device. Every notebook, page, line of ink, photo, clipping and voice note is stored by the app on your iPhone or iPad.

In your iCloud. To keep your devices the same, Thinkblot syncs through the private CloudKit database in your own iCloud account. Only devices signed in to your Apple Account can read it. Apple stores it under its iCloud terms, and Shean Studios has no way to open it. If you're signed out of iCloud, or iCloud is off for Thinkblot, your notebooks stay on the device and simply don't sync.

In Spotlight, on the device. The text of your lines is added to your device's own Spotlight index, so you can search your notebooks from the Home Screen. That index stays on the device, and deleted lines are removed from it.

Reading your handwriting, spotting tasks and plans, the math after an equals sign, totals in a table, page summaries, journal prompts and translations all run on your iPhone or iPad, using Apple's on-device models.

Voice notes are recorded into your notebook and transcribed by Apple's on-device speech model. The audio never leaves the device, apart from syncing with the rest of the notebook to your iCloud.

Illustrations made with Image Playground are made on the device. Your drawing stays as you drew it.

Some things are too much for a phone alone. For those, Thinkblot can use Apple's Private Cloud Compute. It's off until you allow it: the first time a feature needs it, Thinkblot asks once. You can turn it off any time in Thinkblot's Settings, under Privacy.

When it's on, only what a request needs is sent:

• Hard-to-read ink: an image of that one line.
• Circling to ask: an image of what you circled, with up to 15 other lines from the same page for context, and any follow-up you ask.
• Defining, explaining or quizzing highlighted words: the words, with the lines on that page.
• Estimating a meal in a health journal: the lines that describe the meal.
• Drafting a message, when the device can't: the line, and who it's to.
• The weekly look across notebooks: short summaries of pages, written on your device, with their notebook names and dates. Never ink, photos or full pages.
• Summarising a long saved link: the text of that web page.

Apple designed Private Cloud Compute so that what's sent is used only to answer the request, isn't stored, and can't be seen by Apple. Nothing passes through Shean Studios.

Link previews. When you add a link to a page, your device fetches its title and picture straight from that site, the way Messages does.

Videos. YouTube videos play from YouTube's no-cookie site, and Vimeo videos play with Do Not Track set. They load only when you play them.

Link summaries. When you ask for a summary of a saved link, your device fetches the page itself, with a generic app User-Agent, no cookies and nothing that identifies you or your device.

Wikipedia, off by default. In a Curiosity notebook you can turn on "Look things up on Wikipedia". Then, and only then, the name being looked up is sent to Wikipedia, in your device's language, with the same generic User-Agent and no cookies. Nothing else from the page goes with it.

Like any visit to a website, these sites can see your device's network address. Their own privacy policies apply.

These go to Apple, under Apple's privacy policy.

• Places in a plan. When a line names a place, like "dinner at Lilia", that place name is searched in Apple Maps, near you if you've allowed location. Curiosity notebooks search Apple Maps for the place names you write, too.
• Where a photo was taken. To write a place under a photo, the photo's position (from the photo itself, or from where you are when you take it with the camera, if location is allowed) is sent to Apple Maps to be named.
• Setting home by address. If you search for your home's address in Settings, what you type is searched in Apple Maps. Choosing "Use where I am now" sends nothing.
• The forecast. For a plan with a day, the plan's place, or where you are if you've allowed location, is sent to Apple Weather for that day's forecast.

Every permission is optional and asked for only when a feature needs it. You can change any of them in iOS Settings, under Apps, then Thinkblot.

Contacts

Matches names you write, like "Pay Sam", to your contacts, on the device. Your contacts are never uploaded.

Calendars

Finds free time and blocks it for the tasks you choose. Events go into your own calendars.

Reminders

Adds the tasks you choose to Reminders, and completes them when you tick the box in your notebook.

Photos

Finds the photos you took at a plan you wrote, so you can add them to the page. Photos you add are kept in the notebook, like the rest of the page.

Camera

Takes photos and scans documents straight onto a page.

Microphone and speech

Records voice notes into your notebook and transcribes them on the device.

Location

While you're using the app: the forecast where you are, and naming where a camera photo was taken. If you turn on "Remind me when I get home" and allow location Always, iOS also watches a circle around the home you set and tells Thinkblot when you arrive, so reminders come then. Where home is stays on that device: it isn't synced, sent to us or sent to anyone else, and no record of where you've been is kept.

Health

Reads workouts, sleep and active energy on the device, so a journal page can note yesterday's run or last night's sleep. Writes a meal's estimate to Health only when you tap Save to Health. Health data is never sent to us or anyone else. What you choose to write on a page syncs with that notebook to your iCloud.

Journaling Suggestions

Apple's picker shows suggestions on your device. Thinkblot only receives the one you pick.

Notifications

Scheduled on the device by the device, like "Add photos from Sunday?". There's no push server and nothing about your pages leaves the device to send them.

When you tap to draft a message, pay someone, add a reminder, block time or run a shortcut, Thinkblot hands that one item to the app you chose, on your device. Nothing goes anywhere until you send it, and that app's own terms apply from there.

"Help improve Thinkblot" is off unless you turn it on, during setup or in Settings. When it's on, the app sends anonymous counts to TelemetryDeck, an analytics service, about once a minute while you use it.

What's sent: the name of an event, like "card opened", with short fixed values, like which button was tapped or what kind of line it was; the app version; a random install ID, which you can reset in Settings; a random ID for that session; and Apple's daily crash and hang counts, as numbers.

What's never sent: anything you write or say, names, amounts, places, photos, or any health values. Health features count only that they were used.

As with any request, TelemetryDeck can see the network address it comes from.

The waitlist and the beta. If you join, we store your email address and which signup form you used, in a database run for us by Supabase. For the beta we also store the devices you picked. We use the waitlist only to send you one email when Thinkblot is out, and the beta list only to send your TestFlight invite and beta news. To be removed, write to hello@thinkblot.app.

Fonts. The site's typefaces load from Google Fonts, so Google can see your network address when you visit.

Visitor counts. We count visits to this site with PostHog, without cookies and without storing anything on your device. To tell one day's visits apart, PostHog makes a code from your network address and browser that changes every day, and keeps a rough location (country and city), not the address itself. We see which pages were visited, the site that sent you there, and whether a signup form was sent, never your email or anything you type, and we can't tell who you are.

The site sets no cookies.

• You. Everything in your notebooks.
• Apple, as the provider of iCloud, Private Cloud Compute, Maps and Weather, for what's described above, under Apple's terms.
• Shean Studios. Only a waitlist email, if you gave one, and anonymous usage counts, if you turned them on. Never your pages.

• A notebook: long-press it on the shelf, or open its settings, and choose Delete notebook. Its pages, voice notes and reminder links are removed from every device. Export it as PDF or Markdown first if you want a copy.
• Everything in iCloud: in iOS Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then Manage Storage (or Manage Account Storage), choose Thinkblot, and delete its data.
• Everything on a device: delete the app.
• Usage counts: turn off "Help improve Thinkblot", or reset the anonymous ID.
• The waitlist: write to hello@thinkblot.app and we'll remove your email.

Wherever you live, you can ask us what we hold about you (at most, a waitlist email) and have it deleted.

Thinkblot isn't directed at children under 13. The app collects no personal information from anyone, children included. If a child has joined the waitlist, write to us and we'll delete the address.

If how Thinkblot handles data changes, this page will change first, with a new effective date. Anything that sends more off your device will be off until you turn it on.

Questions about privacy go to hello@thinkblot.app.

Shean Studios LLC