Privacy Policy

Which apps this covers

This policy applies to 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.

The short version

Merano Studio ("we", "our", "us") does not want your personal data and does not collect it. 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.

Advertising and tracking

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.

What stays on your device

Your content in these apps — 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.

What leaves your device

Decibels makes no network requests at all. Nothing you do in it ever leaves your device. The other two 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.

• Each request to OpenSky asks for the aircraft inside a box around your position, about sixty kilometres across. That is the only way to know what is overhead, and it means OpenSky receives your approximate location each time the app looks. Planespotters receives only an aircraft's identifier, never anything about you.
• As with any request over the internet, those services can see your device's IP address. The requests also carry a User-Agent naming the app and its version, as their API documentation asks. Nothing identifying you is sent — no account, no device identifier, no advertising identifier.
• The data that comes back is about aircraft, not about you. It is used to draw what is overhead and we do not retain it.

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.

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:

• Apple's identifiers for the transaction, the product you bought, the date, the price and currency, the App Store country the purchase was made in, and whether it was a real or sandbox purchase.
• A random identifier generated on your device the first time the app runs and kept in your device's keychain. It is a random value — not derived from your serial number, phone number, Apple Account, or any advertising identifier — and it lets us recognise repeat transactions from the same installation. It is not linked to your identity and we cannot use it to find you.
• The app's version number.

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.

Purchases

Some of these apps offer optional in-app purchases — 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.

This website

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.

The site is static and has no accounts, no comment forms and no newsletter. 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.

Children's privacy

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.

Your choices

• Decline the cookie banner on this site, and no analytics are collected from your visit.
• Delete an app at any time; its data goes with it.
• Because we hold no personal data about you, there is nothing to request, correct, or erase — but you are welcome to write and ask, and we will tell you exactly what we can see, which is very little.

Changes to this policy

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.

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns about this policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at: