Privacy policy

Tonaut collects nothing about you. There are no analytics, no accounts, no advertising identifiers, no crash reporting service, and no server of ours anywhere. Out of the box the app makes no network calls at all. The one exception is iCloud sync, which is off until you turn it on — and it copies your own work to your own iCloud, and nothing else, ever.

This page describes what the app actually does, not what a template says it might. If you find something here that does not match the app, write to hello@coastcreative.studio and it will be corrected.

What Tonaut collects

Nothing. The app's privacy manifest declares no collected data types at all, and declares that it does not track you. There are no third-party SDKs in the app.

Where your work is kept

Everything you make with Tonaut stays in the app's own folders on your device:

• Reels — your projects, with their tape tracks, patches, patterns, mix and any samples you recorded — are stored inside the app's Application Support folder.
• Exports — the stereo mixdowns and stems you choose to render — are written as WAV files into the app's Documents folder, so you can reach them yourself from the Files app on your iPhone.

With iCloud sync off, which is how the app arrives, none of this is uploaded or synced by Tonaut. With it on, your reels are copied to your own iCloud so your other iPhone can open them — to Apple's private database for this app, which only you can reach. If your iPhone backs itself up to iCloud or to a computer, your Tonaut files are included in that backup the same way every other app's files are — that is iOS doing it, under your settings, not Tonaut.

Deleting the app deletes everything in it. With sync on, the copy in your iCloud outlives the app and is removed through iOS Settings › your name › iCloud › Manage Storage › Tonaut. Export anything you want to keep first.

iCloud sync

Tonaut can copy your work to your own iCloud so your other iPhone can open it. It is off when you install the app and it stays off until you turn it on in Tonaut's settings.

With it on, what crosses is your reels — their patches, kits, patterns, mixes, tempo, keyboard octave, quick slots and any samples in them — and the tape audio of the reel you open, which comes down when you open it and not before. Rendered exports do not cross. Your undo history does not cross.

It goes to your iCloud, into the private database iOS keeps for this app, and it counts against your iCloud storage rather than against anything of ours. Coast Creative has no server in this and no account for you: we cannot see your reels, cannot read them and cannot restore them. If they are gone from your iCloud they are gone.

Tape audio is large. A four-track reel with a few minutes on it is a few hundred megabytes, so sync uses Wi-Fi only unless you switch that off yourself, and the app tells you the size before it sends anything.

Turning sync off stops anything further crossing and leaves what is already in your iCloud where it is. Remove it through iOS Settings › your name › iCloud › Manage Storage › Tonaut, which is Apple's own control for exactly this.

One thing worth knowing: deleting a reel while your other iPhone is offline, and then using that other iPhone, brings the reel back. Tonaut would rather resurrect a reel you meant to delete than delete one you meant to keep. Delete it again and it stays deleted.

The three permissions it asks for

iOS will ask you for each of these the first time the app needs it, and you can say no. Saying no turns off that one feature and nothing else.

iCloud sync is not one of them. It uses the Apple Account already signed in on the phone, so there is no permission to grant and no prompt to answer — only the switch in Tonaut's own settings, which is off until you move it.

Microphone

So you can sample. Audio from the microphone is recorded into the current reel when you record it, and it is used to feed the input level meter while sampling is armed. It is never sent anywhere, never transcribed, and never listened to in the background — the app only opens the input when you are sampling.

Bluetooth

So you can connect a wireless MIDI keyboard or controller. Tonaut uses Bluetooth only to find and pair MIDI devices through the standard iOS pairing screen. It does not scan for beacons, does not use Bluetooth for location, and does not record what it sees.

Motion

Because tilting the phone bends the sound. The feature is called Lean: while you are holding a key, Tonaut reads the phone's gravity vector to work out the angle you are holding it at, and that angle drives one parameter of the sound. The value is used in the current moment and thrown away. It is not stored, not logged, and not used to work out where you are or what you are doing.

The three system things it reads

Apple requires apps to declare certain system APIs and give a reason for each. Tonaut declares three, and these are the real reasons:

• User defaults — to remember one setting, your choice of housing (auto, light or dark), and to read launch arguments used during testing. Reason code CA92.1.
• File timestamps — to sort your own reels by which one you worked on most recently. Reason code C617.1.
• System boot time — the monotonic clock the audio engine uses to schedule notes accurately and to stamp its own internal log lines. Reason code 35F9.1.

All three are used inside the app, for the app. None of them produces anything that is sent, shared or kept beyond what it is for.

Children

Tonaut is a musical instrument and is safe for any age to use. It has no chat, no social features, no user-generated content shared with anyone, no links out to the web from inside the app, and no advertising. Since it collects nothing from anybody, it collects nothing from children either.

Purchases

Tonaut will be sold as a one-time purchase through the App Store. Apple handles the transaction, the payment details and the receipt. Coast Creative never sees your payment information and never receives your name, address or email from Apple in connection with a purchase.

If you write to us

If you email hello@coastcreative.studio, we will have your email address and whatever you put in the message, for as long as it takes to answer you and keep a record of the exchange. It is not added to a mailing list, not sold, and not passed to anyone else. Ask us to delete the thread and we will.

The launch alert

If you give us your email address on the launch alert form, it goes to our inbox through Resend, the email service we use, and is used for one thing: telling you when Tonaut is on the App Store. Write to hello@coastcreative.studio and we’ll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If the app ever changes in a way that makes something on this page untrue, this page changes first, with the date at the top updated. That is what happened here: iCloud sync was on the wish list and is now in the app, and this page was rewritten before the build went out.

Contact

Coast Creative
hello@coastcreative.studio