Privacy Policy
Summary
Apple Game: New Friends has no account and no sign-in, and never asks for your name, email address or contacts. Your progress is saved on your phone. To keep public rankings, the game sends the moves of your daily and league games to our ranking server together with a random install ID. Solo game scores stay on your phone. The game also uses services run by Google: Google Analytics for Firebase and Firebase Crashlytics, to measure how the game is played and to find crashes; Google AdMob, to show full-screen ads between games and an optional rewarded ad; and Google Play Billing, to sell optional ad-free passes. The game requests the Internet permission for these services and the vibration permission for haptic feedback.
What the game stores on your device
The game saves in the app’s own storage on your phone: your settings (sound, music, vibration, hints, screen orientation), your rating and the history used to pick opponents of your level, best scores, a log of your daily scores, a log of your solo games (date, score, stars and rating), a random install ID, and the state of the ad rules (how many games were played since the last ad). None of it identifies you by name. Uninstalling the game or clearing its storage deletes it.
Rankings (our server)
When you finish a daily or league game, or create or join a friend league, the game sends to our server: the random install ID, the day, the app version, the league code if any, and the moves of the game (which rectangles were cleared and when). The server replays the moves to check the score and shows it in the rankings next to an animal name made from the random install ID — not your name. The server runs on Cloudflare, which processes the request including your IP address to deliver it; we do not store IP addresses with your scores. Scores are kept so that rankings for days, weeks, months and all time can be shown. To have your scores removed, email us at the address below.
1:1 games with a friend (our server)
When you make or join a 1:1 room, the game connects to our game server on Cloudflare with a random token made for that room. The server keeps the room code, which apples each player popped and the scores, so both phones see the same board; it stores only a scrambled (hashed) form of the token, not your name or any other identifier. Rooms are deleted one day after they are last used. Cloudflare processes your IP address to deliver the connection; we do not store it.
Usage statistics (Google Analytics for Firebase)
The game sends usage statistics to Google Analytics for Firebase. These include what the Firebase SDK collects on its own (first open, sessions and how long the app is open, app version, device model and operating system, and an approximate location — country or region — that Google works out from the connection) and game events that the game adds, such as starting and finishing a game, the mode, the score and ad events. To count devices, the Firebase SDK creates a random app-instance ID for each installation. Firebase is set up not to collect the Android advertising ID (only the ad service below uses it). We use these statistics only to balance and improve the game. We do not sell them.
Crash reports (Firebase Crashlytics)
If the game crashes, Firebase Crashlytics sends a crash report: where in the game’s code the crash happened, the app version, device model, operating system and the app-instance ID above. It does not contain your game data.
Ads (Google AdMob)
The game shows full-screen ads between games, never during a game: after your first five wins, one may appear each time you finish a game. In the daily challenge you can also choose to watch one rewarded ad before the game starts to get 30 extra seconds; you can play without it. While an ad-free pass is active there are no ads and the extra time is free. There are no banner ads. Users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are asked for their choices about ads and data through a consent form from Google (User Messaging Platform). You can play either way.
To show and measure ads and to prevent fraud, the Google Mobile Ads SDK collects the IP address (which may be used to estimate the general location of the device), your interactions with the app and its ads, diagnostic information about the app and the SDK, and device identifiers such as the Android advertising ID and app set ID. Google describes this in its data disclosure for the SDK and in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services. You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your Android settings.
Passes (Google Play)
Optional prepaid ad-free passes (1 week, 3 months, 1 year) are sold through Google Play. Payment is handled entirely by Google Play; we never see your card or payment details. The game receives only the product, its period and an order token from Google Play to know whether a pass is active.
Who receives data
Data leaves your phone only to our ranking and 1:1 game servers (above, hosted on Cloudflare) and to Google through the services above. Google processes it under the Firebase privacy and security terms and the Google Privacy Policy. We do not sell data.
What the game does not do
No account, no sign-in and no chat. Opponents in Friends mode are computer players, not other people. No precise location, contacts, camera or microphone are accessed.
Children
The game is not directed at children. It does not ask anyone, including children, for a name, contact details or other personal information.
Changes
If a future version starts collecting or sharing other data, this page will be updated before that version is released, and the effective date above will change.