Last Updated: October 10, 2026
This policy applies to Soft Day, Plane and Simple, Decibels and Excuses Excuses, and to this website. Two of our apps have their own, more detailed policies: Flooring It, and our ad-supported games Bricks of Zai and Zen Stones.
Merano Studio ("we", "our", "us") does not want your personal data and does not collect it. The one exception is the email address you give us if you join one of our mailing lists. The apps covered here have no account, no sign-up, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. They contain no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK and no crash reporter. What you do in them stays on your device; the only things any of them ever send us are described in full under What leaves your device below, and none of it is about you.
There is none in these apps. They do not request Apple's advertising identifier (IDFA) and never show the App Tracking Transparency prompt, because they do not track you — not across apps, not across websites, not at all. No advertising or measurement network receives anything from them.
Our games are ad-supported; their policy is here.
Your content in these apps — your Moments and saved places in Soft Day, sound measurements in Decibels, your logbook in Plane and Simple, your excuse packs in Excuses Excuses — is written to that app's own private storage on your device. We have no server holding it and no ability to retrieve it. Deleting the app deletes it.
Plane and Simple's logbook has one home besides your device, and it is yours, not ours. The logbook is mirrored to your own iCloud account, in a private database that only your devices can read, so a new phone does not cost you the collection. It is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy, it is on by default, and the logbook's menu turns it off, after which the logbook stays on the device alone. Each sighting records where you were standing when you saw the aircraft, and that travels with the logbook wherever it goes.
Decibels makes no network requests at all. Nothing you do in it ever leaves your device. The others do talk to the internet, and here is exactly when and what:
Plane and Simple has to fetch flight data to be useful. It queries the OpenSky Network and Planespotters for public aircraft positions and aircraft-type information.
Plane and Simple can also share your progress through Game Center, Apple's service for games. This is off by default and only turns on if you choose Compare with friends in the logbook and confirm. When it is on, the app sends Apple your achievements and the number of different aircraft you have logged, which appear under your Game Center name to your Game Center friends and on leaderboards. Your logbook itself, and where you were, never go to Game Center. It is governed by Apple's Privacy Policy, and the same toggle turns it off.
Two more things leave the app only because you send them: a share card made from a photo you took, and your logbook exported as a spreadsheet. Both go only where you choose to send them. The export includes where you were standing for each sighting.
Soft Day fetches its forecast from Met Éireann, Ireland's national weather service. Before it asks, your position is rounded to a few kilometres, and that rounded point is the only thing Met Éireann receives. Searching for a place to save (home, work, the parents) sends what you type to Apple Maps, under Apple's Privacy Policy. Moments, the weather questions you set up, and the notifications they produce are worked out and delivered on the device; nothing about them is sent anywhere. The app collects nothing else.
Excuses Excuses contacts our own server when — and only when — you buy a content pack or tap Restore Purchases. It sends a record of that transaction so we can confirm the purchase is genuine and keep your packs unlocked. That record contains:
We store no name, email address, or payment information alongside any of this, and we receive nothing about which excuses you use or when you use them. The app makes no other network requests of any kind.
Some of these apps offer optional in-app purchases — Soft Day Plus and a tip jar in Soft Day, a tip jar in Plane and Simple and Decibels, and content packs in Excuses Excuses. Payment is handled entirely by Apple. We never see or receive your payment details, your Apple Account, or your name. Any purchase information is subject to Apple's Privacy Policy.
Separately from the apps, merano.studio uses Google Analytics — but only if you accept the cookie banner. Decline it and Google Analytics is never loaded and nothing is sent to Google. (Declining does store one item in your browser, recording that you declined, so we do not ask again.) If you accept, Google Analytics records standard web analytics about your visit, as described in the Google Privacy Policy. We use it to see which pages people find useful. We do not use it to identify you and we do not combine it with anything else.
Apart from the mailing lists, the site has no accounts, no forms and nothing that asks who you are. Our host keeps ordinary server access logs — the page requested, the site you came from, your IP address and your browser — which we use for operational and security purposes and to see how the site is used. Those logs are deleted after 30 days. We keep the aggregate counts we work out from them, such as how many people read a given page; those say nothing about any individual.
If you sign up on the Merano page to hear about the game, or on the Checks and Balances page to hear when it ships, we keep, for that list:
We use this only to send you notes about Merano: a new look at the game, a devlog, the beta when it opens. Nothing is sent until you confirm with the link in the first email, and every note has a link to leave. Our emails contain no tracking pixels and no tracked links, so we do not know whether you open them.
To stop abuse of the form, we count sign-ups from each IP address for an hour. We keep a hash of the IP address (a code computed from it) rather than the address itself, and use it for nothing else. After the hour it is no longer used, and it is deleted automatically, normally within a few days.
Only Merano Studio sees the list. We never sell, rent or share it. It is stored and sent using Amazon Web Services, which processes it for us in the United States under the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. If you reply to a note, your reply reaches us through Google Workspace.
We hold your address because you asked us to, and you can withdraw that consent at any time by leaving. If you never confirm, we delete your address within 30 days. When you leave, we keep only your address and the fact that you left, so that we never write to you again; ask us and we will delete that too. Deleted addresses drop out of our backups 35 days later. You can ask to see, correct or delete what we hold at any time, and you can complain to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland.
These apps are not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, of any age. If you are a parent or guardian and believe we might have inadvertently collected information from your child, please contact us immediately at the email address below.
We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the new version on this page and update the "Last Updated" date at the top.
If you have any questions or concerns about this policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at: