Privacy Policy

What the app stores on your phone

In the app’s private storage on the device, and nowhere else:

• Your steps, minute by minute, and the daily totals, distance, calories and active time worked out from them.
• Steps on hold: steps the travel guard kept out of your total, with their time range and the reason, until you add or discard them or they expire after 48 hours.
• Your streaks and achievements, and when counting was paused or interrupted.
• Your profile and settings: height, weight and stride (optional, and used only to estimate distance and calories), units, daily goal, reminders and quiet hours, appearance, and the travel guard and Health Connect switches.

Physical activity and the step sensor

Amble asks for one permission to count: Physical activity on Android, Motion & Fitness on iPhone. It uses it to read the phone’s step counter — or, on an Android phone without one, the accelerometer — and for the travel guard.

The travel guard tells when the phone is probably in a vehicle, on a bicycle or running: on Android through the activity recognition in Google Play services, on iPhone through the system’s motion activity. Steps counted while the phone seemed to be in a vehicle, or with a rhythm no one walks at, are held out of your total until you add or discard them. All of this happens on the phone. Amble does not use GPS or location of any kind, and the location permissions are blocked in the app.

Health Connect (Android 14 and later, optional)

If you turn on Health Connect backup — offered when you allow activity access, and in Settings → Step counting — Amble asks Health Connect for permission to read steps. It reads nothing else, and it writes nothing to Health Connect.

It uses that permission for one thing. When the phone has stopped Amble in the background, the step sensor still knows how many steps were missed, but not when they were taken. Amble then reads the step counts Health Connect holds for that stretch of time, in 10-minute blocks, and uses them only to place the missed steps in the right hours. The step sensor stays the source of how many steps you took.

Data read from Health Connect stays on your phone. It is never sent to us or to anyone else, never used for advertising, and never used for anything but placing your own steps in your history. Amble’s use of information received from Health Connect adheres to the Health Connect Permissions policy, including its Limited Use requirements. You can withdraw the permission at any time in Health Connect, or switch the backup off in Settings → Step counting.

Notifications

Every notification is created on your phone; no server of ours sends any, and counting works whether you allow them or not.

• Live step count (Android) — Android requires a visible notification while an app counts in the background. It shows today’s steps, with Pause and Open.
• Goal reached, new achievement, the evening nudge and (Android) the move reminder — at most two a day, held back during quiet hours.
• Step checks — the travel guard’s question about held steps, with Yes and No.
• Counting interrupted (Android) — when the phone stopped Amble for 30 minutes or more.

Backups, sharing and feedback

A backup is made only when you ask for one. Save backup file writes one file — your step history, achievements and settings, profile included — and hands it to the place you choose, such as Downloads, Google Drive or a USB stick. From then on it is outside Amble, so keep it somewhere private. Restore from file reads a file you pick and merges it with what is on the phone. Android’s automatic app-data backup is switched off for Amble, so nothing is copied to your Google account behind your back.

Share your week draws an image card on the phone and passes it to the app you choose. Amble does not upload it. Share Amble opens your phone’s share sheet with a link to Amble’s store page, and nothing else.

Send feedback opens Amble’s support page in your browser. What you type in its form is sent only when you submit it, and is handled as the makekk website’s privacy policy describes, at makekk.com/privacy.

Advertising

Amble is free and is paid for by advertising. Ads are served by Google AdMob, which is part of Google: one native ad on the Today screen and a banner at the foot of History’s week view. There are no full-screen, video or rewarded ads, and none during setup, in celebrations, in dialogs or in Settings. Ads are limited to Google’s T (teen) content rating or milder. Whether ads appear at all is controlled by the app’s remote settings; with them off, or without a connection, no ad is requested.

To select and measure an ad, AdMob receives your device’s advertising identifier, your IP address and coarse information about the device and app — for example the model, the operating system version and the app version — along with whether an ad was shown, viewed or tapped. Google acts as an independent controller of that information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy. Your steps, history, height, weight and stride are never part of an ad request.

If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, Google’s consent form asks for your choice before any ad is requested, and no ad is requested if consent is needed and not given. Where the form applies, you can change your choice at any time in Settings → Privacy & about → Ad privacy options. On iPhone, the consent flow can also show Apple’s tracking prompt; if you decline, the advertising identifier is not shared and ads are not personalised.

You can reset or delete your advertising identifier, or turn off ad personalisation for every app, in your phone’s settings at any time.

How the app reports on itself

Amble uses three Google Firebase services to keep the app working. None of them ever receives a step count, your step history, your height, weight or stride, or anything read from Health Connect.

• Remote Config fetches a small settings file, at most every 12 hours, so whether ads are on and the travel guard’s thresholds — how far back it looks, the fastest step rhythm it accepts and how long held steps wait — can be tuned without an update. Without a connection the app uses its built-in defaults, with ads off.
• Analytics records Firebase’s automatic events — for example that the app was opened for the first time and that it was used, and for how long — which is what tells us how many people use Amble. It also records a few actions, with no step data: that setup was finished; whether activity and notification access were allowed; the range your daily goal falls in (for example 8,000–10,000), never the number; whether held steps were added or discarded; that your week was shared; the phone maker you picked in the battery guide; the appearance you chose; and that a backup was saved or restored. Because the app’s AdMob account is linked to its Firebase project, Analytics also records when an ad is shown.
• Crashlytics sends a report when the app crashes or hits an error: what went wrong, where in the code it happened, the state of the device at the time, and three labels that help us reproduce it — whether counting was running, which sensor was in use, and the phone’s maker.

What those reports contain

A Firebase installation identifier, your IP address, and basic information about the device and the app — the model, the operating system version, the app version, the language and the country worked out from the IP address. The identifier is specific to this installation of Amble; it is not your Google or Apple account, and uninstalling the app ends it. Analytics does not collect the advertising identifier; collecting it is switched off in the app, and only AdMob, above, uses it.

Analytics follows the same consent choice as ads, through Google’s Consent Mode. It starts with all four signals — analytics storage, ad storage, ad user data and ad personalisation — denied, and the app checks your consent every time it starts, even while ads are off. Outside the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, where no consent is needed, they are then granted. Inside them they follow your answer in Google’s consent form: both kinds of storage follow whether you allowed storing and accessing information on your device, ad user data follows “select basic ads”, and ad personalisation follows “select personalised ads”. Until you answer they stay denied; while storage is denied, Analytics keeps no identifier for your installation, and what Google receives is limited to what Consent Mode permits. A change in Settings → Privacy & about → Ad privacy options applies straight away.

Crash reports are not covered by those signals: Crashlytics sends them in release builds whatever you chose, and they never include your steps or anything you entered. Google processes this information on our behalf as a data processor, under its own terms at firebase.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms.

Ratings

After your third goal day, Amble may ask Google Play or the App Store to show its rating prompt, once. The store decides whether it appears and handles it; Amble never sees your rating.

What we do not do

• We do not ask you to create an account, and we do not know who you are.
• We do not upload, store or see your steps, step history, height, weight, stride or backups.
• We do not use GPS or your location, and we do not read your contacts, photos or files or use your camera or microphone.
• We do not share step or health data with anyone, and never use it for advertising.
• We do not sell personal information — we hold none.

Children

Amble is meant for people aged 13 and over and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, children included.

Your choices

Decline activity access and Amble cannot count; decline notifications and it still counts, without reminders. Switch the travel guard off in Settings → Step counting, and Health Connect backup there or in Health Connect itself. Change your consent for ads and analytics in Settings → Privacy & about → Ad privacy options where it is offered, and reset or delete your advertising identifier in your phone’s settings. Settings → Privacy & about → Delete all step data erases your history; uninstalling removes everything.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that affects you, the revised version will be published on this page with a new revision date. Continuing to use Amble after that date means the revised policy applies.

Contact

Questions about privacy can be sent to amblestepcounter@makekk.com.