In short
No account, no ads, no tracking across apps and websites, and we never sell data. Sound from your microphone or your music is analyzed on your device as it plays; it is recorded only into clips you choose to make, which stay on your device until you save or share them, and we never send it over the internet. To keep the app stable and learn which scenes people enjoy, we collect usage statistics and crash reports that aren’t linked to your name, email or Apple Account.
Who we are
Polar Static is made by Ihar Klionski, an independent developer based in Poland (“we”, “us”). We decide how the data described here is used and are responsible for it under data protection law. Contact: hello@polarstatic.app.
Sound
In Reactive mode the scene responds to sound. You choose where it comes from:
- Around uses the microphone, after you allow it.
- On this device uses an iOS screen broadcast to hear music playing in other apps. Polar Static takes only the audio from it; the picture is ignored.
Either way, the sound is turned on your device, as it plays, into a few measurements — loudness, beats and the balance of low and high frequencies — that move the scene. To get from the broadcast to the app, the last fraction of a second of audio passes through a small buffer in the app’s private storage. It is overwritten continuously, excluded from backups and erased when the broadcast stops. Apart from clips you make, nothing is saved as a recording, and no sound or measurement is sent over the internet.
You can turn the microphone off at any time in the app or in Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone.
Clips
When you record a clip, the iPhone or iPad app records the scene on screen and, while the scene is listening, its sound: the microphone as it is, or the music from the same device. Music from many other apps can’t be recorded and comes through silent. After recording you choose whether the clip keeps its sound.
The clip is made in the app’s temporary storage on your device and deleted when you discard it. It leaves the app only if you save it to Photos — the app asks only for permission to add, never to read your library — or share it to a place you pick. We never receive your clips.
What stays on your device
These are kept on your device only and never sent to us:
- your scene, mode, palette, slider positions and other settings, which widgets, Control Center, Siri and Shortcuts also read;
- which collections you own, and how many previews of locked scenes you have used today;
- whether you have finished the introduction, and similar app state.
Deleting the app removes them.
Apple TV and Apple Watch
Apple TV. To pair, your iPhone finds the TV on your local network and you confirm a 4‑digit code. During use the iPhone sends the TV the sound measurements described above, your remote-control commands and the current scene settings — never audio. The connection is encrypted and stays on your local network. Each device keeps the pairing keys, a random device ID and a generic device name such as “iPhone” in its Keychain, on that device only; the TV remembers up to eight phones.
If you let the TV listen through an iPhone, iPad or AirPods microphone, Apple’s system carries that sound to the TV, and the TV analyzes it the same way, without recording it.
Apple Watch. The watch app is a remote. It exchanges commands and the current scene, palette and TV name with your iPhone through Apple’s watch connection.
Usage statistics and crash reports
The iPhone, iPad and Apple TV apps use Google’s Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics and Remote Config. They collect:
- How the app is used: for example which scene was opened, which mode was chosen, how long a session lasted, whether a collection was viewed, previewed or bought (the product, and, as recorded by Firebase, its price and currency), whether a clip was made (its length, whether it kept its sound and the identifier of the app or action it was shared to — never the clip itself), and app launches and updates.
- Identifiers: random IDs created by Firebase for this installation. We don’t collect Apple’s advertising identifier (IDFA) or its identifier for vendor (IDFV).
- Device and app details: device model, system version, app version, language, time zone, and an approximate location (country and region) that Google derives from your IP address.
- Crash reports and diagnostics: what the app was doing when it crashed.
We use this to find and fix crashes, see which scenes and features people use, and adjust settings such as preview length without an app update. The data isn’t linked to your name, email or Apple Account, and it isn’t used for advertising or to track you across other apps and websites. Ad personalization and ad network features are turned off. Google processes the data on our behalf under its Firebase data processing terms.
Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the app stable and improving it. You can object at any time by writing to us. Deleting the app stops all collection and resets its identifiers.
Purchases
Purchases are handled entirely by Apple. We never see your name, Apple Account or payment details; the app checks with Apple on your device which collections you own.
When someone buys a collection or gets a refund, Apple sends us a signed notice. Our server, which runs on Cloudflare, keeps only the event type, the product, the price and currency, and whether it was a test, for 10 days, to build a weekly sales summary. It discards everything else, including transaction numbers. It also sends the developer a short message through Telegram with the product, price and App Store country. Nothing in these notices identifies the buyer.
When you write to us
If you email us, we use your address and message only to answer you, and keep the conversation for up to two years in case you write again, unless you ask us to delete it sooner. Our address is run by Cloudflare Email Routing, which forwards each message to a Gmail mailbox at Google, where it is stored.
This website
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other companies; even its fonts are served from here. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes your IP address and browser details to deliver the pages and protect the site from attacks. The “Let it hear the room” demo on the home page analyzes your microphone inside the page only; nothing is recorded or sent.
Who receives data
- Google — usage statistics, crash reports and settings through Firebase, as our processor; and the emails you send us, stored in our Gmail mailbox.
- Cloudflare — runs our purchase-notice server, hosts this website and forwards our email, as our processor.
- Telegram — delivers purchase messages to the developer; they contain no buyer information.
- Apple — handles purchases, refunds and Family Sharing as an independent controller, under Apple’s privacy policy.
Google and Cloudflare may process data in the United States and other countries. Such transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. We don’t sell or share personal information for advertising, and we don’t use it for automated decisions about you.
How long we keep it
- Usage statistics: up to 14 months.
- Crash reports: 90 days.
- Firebase installation IDs: until they are no longer used; Google deletes them within 180 days of a deletion request.
- Purchase notices: 10 days on our server; the Telegram messages stay in the developer’s chat.
- Emails: up to two years.
Your rights
Depending on where you live — including the EU, the UK and California — you can ask to access, correct or delete personal data about you, to restrict or object to its use, and to receive it in a portable form. Write to hello@polarstatic.app; we answer within one month. Because the usage statistics and crash reports aren’t linked to your identity, we usually can’t tell which of them come from you; deleting the app stops their collection and resets its identifiers. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live or, in Poland, to the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO).
Children
Polar Static is not directed at children under 13, or under the age of digital consent where you live, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, write to us and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will update it here and change the date at the top. Significant changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.