Your family's stories stay on your iPad
Popfables is a picture-book app for young children. We built it so that it doesn't need to know anything about you or your child, and it doesn't.
This policy covers the Popfables app for iPad and this website, popfables.app. Popfables is made by tangent3 Limited, a company registered in Hong Kong (“we”, “us”).
The short version
- We collect no data. The App Store privacy label for Popfables is “Data Not Collected”.
- No accounts, no ads, no tracking. There is nothing to sign up for, no advertising, and no analytics or tracking code in the app.
- Everything stays on the iPad. The names your child gives the hero and pet, their choices, saved stories, pins and settings are kept on your iPad and are never sent to us or to any AI service.
- The app only talks to Apple: to ask whether a new version is ready, and for prices, purchases and restores, which happen between you and Apple.
1. What stays on your iPad
To tell a story, Popfables keeps a few things in its own private storage on your iPad:
- each child's profile: a first name or nickname you choose, and the picture they tap on “Who's reading?”;
- the names your child gives the hero and pet in each story;
- the choices made in a story, the saved stories, and a short memory of recent tellings so that re-reads feel fresh;
- the pins your child has earned, and the grown-ups' settings (such as Read to me, music volume and Calm motion).
None of this is sent to us or to anyone else. The stories were written and checked before the app reached you; your child's names are woven in on the iPad, and the storyteller's voice is made on the iPad, so the names never leave it to be put into a story or turned into speech. This information is protected by your iPad's own security, such as its passcode.
If you back up your iPad with iCloud or a computer, the backup may include Popfables' storage, as it does for other apps. That backup is between you and Apple; we have no access to it.
Popfables does not use the microphone, camera, location, contacts or photos.
2. When the app goes online
Popfables works without the internet. It connects only to Apple, in two cases:
- The version check. New books arrive in app updates, so at most once every 24 hours (when the app is opened, never during a story) Popfables asks Apple's public App Store lookup service whether a newer version exists. The request carries only the app's identifier (app.popfables.ipad) and your App Store country, such as “US”: never a name, profile, choice, story, purchase or device identifier. It is sent without cookies or stored data. If a new version exists, a note appears in the grown-ups panel only. Without the internet, nothing happens.
- Prices and purchases. The Sets screen in the grown-ups panel asks the App Store for its prices. Buying and restoring a Set happen in Apple's own purchase screens.
As with any internet request, Apple's servers can see the network (IP) address the request comes from. Apple's handling of that is covered by Apple's privacy policy.
3. Purchases
The first book, The Moon's Little Lantern, is free. The book Sets are one-time in-app purchases made through Apple, behind a grown-ups gate. Apple handles the whole purchase: we never see your name, Apple Account, email or payment details. Apple tells the app, on your iPad, which Sets your family owns. Apple gives developers sales reports that do not identify you.
4. Crash reports
Popfables contains no analytics of its own. If you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in your iPad's settings, Apple may pass us crash reports and anonymous usage statistics. They don't identify you or your child, and we use them only to fix problems. You can turn this off in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements.
5. Children
Popfables is made for children and is listed in the App Store's Kids category. Children are never shown ads, prices or links that leave the app: buying a Set and the one link to the App Store sit behind a grown-ups gate. Because we collect no personal information from anyone, we have none to use, share or sell. We designed Popfables with children's privacy laws in mind, including the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the EU and UK GDPR and the UK Age Appropriate Design Code.
6. This website
popfables.app sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other websites. It is hosted by Cloudflare, which handles the technical details every visit sends, such as your IP address and browser type, to deliver the pages and protect the site from abuse, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. We don't use this to identify visitors.
7. If you email us
If you write to hello@popfables.app, we use your email address and message only to reply to you, and we delete them when they are no longer needed, or sooner if you ask. Please don't include your child's name; we never need it to help.
8. Your choices and rights
Because your family's data is on your iPad, you are in control of it:
- delete a saved story, or remove a child's profile, in the grown-ups panel;
- delete the app to remove all of its data from the iPad (iPad backups follow Apple's backup settings). Your purchases stay with your Apple Account and can be restored.
Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act and Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance give you rights over personal data, such as access and deletion. The only personal data we could hold about you is an email you send us; ask at hello@popfables.app and we will act on it.
9. Changes to this policy
If we change how Popfables handles information, we will update this page and its date before the change takes effect. We will never start collecting your child's information without saying so clearly first.
10. Contact us
Questions about privacy: hello@popfables.app. tangent3 Limited (Hong Kong).