Privacy policy
Routine keeps your information on your iPhone. We don't collect it, and we have no servers to send it to.
Effective November 13, 2026
The short version
Routine Life ("Routine", "the app") is made by Daniel Kernan ("we"). The app has no account, no sign-in, no analytics and no advertising. Nothing you enter or that the app reads from your iPhone is sent to us. The only network requests the app makes go to Apple, to fetch weather and drive times.
What the app uses, and why
| Information | Used for | Where it stays |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar events | Turning an event with an address into a leave-by time, and listing your day in the morning note. | On your iPhone. Read through Apple's EventKit with your permission. |
| Location | Saving a place when you tap "I'm here", noticing when you leave home or arrive at a place you chose so a reminder can fire there, and working out drive time and traffic to an event. | On your iPhone. Only the places you picked are monitored. Coordinates are sent to Apple Maps for drive times, routes and place search, and to Apple Weather for forecasts and alerts, under Apple's privacy terms. |
| Learn my routine (optional, off by default) | Noticing which days you are at your saved places, how long regular drives usually take, and places you visit often that aren't saved, so the app can suggest a reminder or a place to save. | On your iPhone only, kept for 60 days. Uses iOS visit tracking when Always location is allowed. Home, work and school comings and goings are not recorded. Turning it off stops collection and deletes what it learned; so do "Forget what it learned" and "Delete everything". |
| Contacts (optional) | Finding the number when you tap Call or Message on a reminder like "Call Mom". Asked for the first time you tap one. | Looked up on your iPhone at the moment you tap, then handed to the Phone or Messages app. Nothing from Contacts is saved by Routine or sent anywhere. |
| Alarms | The optional morning wake-up, and reminders you mark "Ring like an alarm", scheduled through Apple's alarm system so they ring through Silent and Focus. | On your iPhone, with your permission. Only the alarm time is stored. |
| Calendar notes and attendees | With Routine Plus, a short prep card before an event that looks like a meeting or test. | Read on your iPhone and summarized by the on-device Apple Intelligence model. Not sent anywhere. |
| Microphone and speech | Turning what you say while holding the mic button into a reminder. | Transcribed on your iPhone. Audio is not stored and is not sent anywhere. |
| Reminders you add | The things you ask Routine to remember, and how you responded to its nudges (Done, Not useful, snoozed), which tunes how often it interrupts. | On your iPhone, in the app's own storage and the shared storage its widget reads. |
| Notifications | Delivering reminders, the morning note and the evening check-in. | Scheduled locally on your iPhone. No push server is involved. |
| Purchases | Unlocking Routine Plus. | Handled entirely by Apple's App Store. The app checks your entitlement through StoreKit on the device and keeps a yes/no copy of it in its own storage. We never see your payment details or your Apple Account. |
What we don't do
We don't collect, store, sell or share personal information. We don't use third-party analytics, crash reporting or advertising SDKs. We don't track you across apps or websites. We don't create a profile of you.
Apple services
Routine Plus subscriptions and the lifetime purchase are sold through the App Store and are subject to Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement. Weather comes from Apple Weather (WeatherKit) and drive times from Apple Maps. Those requests include the relevant coordinates and are handled by Apple under Apple's privacy policy. Speech recognition and the text parsing that turns a sentence into a reminder run on the iPhone using Apple's on-device frameworks.
Your data, your controls
From the app's Control screen you can export everything as a file, delete everything, edit or remove any reminder or saved place, or turn off any permission. The optional first name you give the app for greetings stays on the device too. Deleting the app removes all of its data. Permissions for calendar, location, alarms, microphone and speech can be changed at any time in Settings on your iPhone.
Children
The app is not directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect information from them. Since the app collects nothing from anyone, there is nothing for us to delete, but if you have a concern, contact us.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. A change that affects how the app handles your information will also be noted in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about privacy: kernan6580@gmail.com