What stays on your phone
Your answers and your history: which note you answered, what you got right, your accuracy by degree and chord, the map of what your ear mixes up, your settings and your reminder time. All of it lives in the app's own files on your device and is not sent anywhere, and there is no account that could carry it off your phone. What does leave the phone is a short summary of each session — the level, how many questions, how many were right — described in the next section.
What we do send
A small set of usage events, to our own server, so we can tell a working app from a broken one. Every event carries a name, a random install identifier, the app version, whether the app came from the App Store or from TestFlight, your language, and the number of days since you installed. A few also carry one or two details, and those details are named with the event in the list below. Nothing beyond that.
The full list: the app was opened, and separately the first time it was ever opened; the app was left without a clean exit; onboarding was started, stepped through — with which step — and finished; the labels for degrees were changed, with the system before and after; a session was started, finished or left early — with the level, how many questions, and how many were right out of ten; a Pro level was tried from the free plan, with which level and where the try was started — the purchase screen, the card in a session's results, or the purchase screen again after a try — and that try was finished, with the same two details; a level was unlocked; hands-free training ended, with how many minutes; Explore was opened; the purchase screen was shown or dismissed; a purchase was completed or restored; a subscription's free trial was started — a completed purchase and a started trial carry which product it was: monthly, yearly or one-time; an instrument was previewed, with which instrument; the free programme was finished — once per install, and whether we saw it happen or found it already done; the card saying what comes next was shown, and whether it was tapped to look at Pro or to repeat a finished level, with which level; the card in a session's results offering five Pro questions was shown — once per install, with which kind of training; which way you went from the results of a session — on to the next level, over the ones you missed, back to the level, the same level again, to the purchase screen, or out — with which level; the question about a daily reminder was shown, and how it ended: yes, no, or the system refused; the way the key is set was offered or changed, with the setting before and after and where it was changed; something failed, with the category of the failure; iOS reported that Hark crashed or froze — what that report carries is below.
The purchase screen also records what it offered — subscriptions with a free trial, subscriptions without one, only the one-time purchase, or no purchase options at all — and a restored purchase says whether it was restored from the purchase screen or from Settings.
Pro access that was not bought in the app itself is recorded too: when Hark first sees it on this install — from an App Store offer code, Family Sharing, or a purchase made earlier or on another device — one event says which product it is and which of those three it came from. Not the code itself and not the transaction.
Asking for a rating is recorded as well: one event when Hark asks iOS to show its rating window, and one when you tap the link to rate Hark in Settings — which of the two it was, and nothing more. Whether the window appeared and what you rated stay between you and Apple.
A finished session also carries how long it took and how many times you asked to hear the key again. When a session is left early, that event carries how long the question had been on screen, whether its sound had started, and whether an answer had already been given. Not what the answer was, and not whether it was right: that stays on your phone like everything else you answer.
For the first three sessions after you install, two more events mark when the session screen appeared and when the first sound of that session was due to start — milliseconds, nothing about your answers. Finishing or leaving a session carries the same timings, the time until the note you answer, and how starting the sound ended: playback was scheduled, there was nothing to play, the audio system did not start, it was stopped, or it had not begun yet. If iOS reports that Hark crashed or froze, we receive that report: the app version and build, the system's codes for what happened, an identifier of Hark's program file, and up to twelve positions in Hark's own code; for a freeze, how long it lasted and how many samples iOS took. Not your answers, not your device, and not the text iOS writes about the cause.
What is deliberately not in that list: which note was played, what you answered, what you confused with what, or anything else that would let us reconstruct a session. "Six right out of ten on the whole scale" is what we see. Which six, we do not.
The identifier
A random number generated on first launch. It is not your Apple Account, it is not taken from any identifier of your device, and it is not linked to your name or email — we have neither. It exists so that two events from the same phone can be counted as one person rather than two. Delete the app and it is gone; install again and a new one appears.
Service providers
No analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no third-party crash reporter, no tracking. Crash and freeze reports come from Apple's MetricKit and are read by Hark's own code. The events are received by our own code running on Cloudflare, which hosts this site and stores the events in its database on our behalf. Nobody else receives them, we sell them to no one, and Hark shows no ads.
Purchases
Hark Pro is sold by Apple three ways: a monthly subscription, a yearly subscription — each may begin with a free trial — and a one-time purchase. Payments, renewals, cancellations and refunds are handled by Apple, and the app asks Apple's StoreKit, on your device, which of them you have. When a purchase completes or a free trial starts, our server receives which of the three it was. It does not receive your payment credentials, your name, your address, your Apple Account identifier or the transaction. Subscriptions are managed and cancelled in your Apple Account settings. Apple describes its side in Apple's privacy policy.
If Hark Pro reaches you without a purchase in the app — an offer code, Family Sharing, or a purchase made earlier or on another device — our server receives which of the three products it is and which of those three ways it came. Not the code, not the transaction.
Notifications
The optional daily reminder is scheduled locally by iOS. There is no push server.
Microphone, contacts, photos, location
Hark asks for none of them. It plays sound and listens to your taps, nothing else.
Children
Hark has no account, no ads and no separate mode for children. Whoever uses it, the app sends the usage events described above and nothing more.
Deleting your data
Settings has a reset that clears your progress. Deleting the app removes everything Hark ever stored on your phone, and the install identifier with it. Usage events are kept for up to 24 months and then deleted automatically; the database's short-term restore copies at Cloudflare expire within 30 days. Deleting the app or resetting progress does not delete events already sent — for that, write to us and we will delete every row carrying your identifier; you will find it in Settings, under About. Neither cancels a subscription: that is done in your Apple Account settings.
Changes
A new version of this policy appears at this address with a new date.