Wayfarer Privacy Policy

Effective for Wayfarer 1.10, updated 4 November 2026

Wayfarer is designed to keep your walking experience on your iPhone. It has no account, advertising or tracking, and its only server holds artwork. From version 1.9.1 it can send anonymous usage statistics, which you can turn off at any time.

Apple Health

With your permission, Wayfarer reads Step Count, Walking + Running Distance, and Flights Climbed from Apple Health to show your daily movement, walking history, stairs, and patterns such as the weekdays and hours you walk most. Hourly step totals for those patterns are read when you open Stats and are not stored. Wayfarer does not write to Apple Health. Health-derived values remain in Wayfarer’s local storage and are not sent to the developer.

Optional weather and location

If you choose Add weather, Wayfarer requests When In Use location permission. It supplies a foreground location through Apple’s WeatherKit service for each weather refresh. Current conditions around you help select the painting shown on Today and whether it moves with the weather. Wayfarer does not retain those coordinates or send them to the developer.

Wayfarer does not request or display air quality, provide a walking recommendation, or send a location to an air-quality provider.

Earlier internal TestFlight builds 62–64 requested model-estimated air quality from Open-Meteo using latitude and longitude rounded to two decimal places. Open-Meteo’s free-service terms state that technical logs may contain IP addresses and coordinates and are deleted after 90 days. Those beta builds sent no account identifier, Apple Health data, step total, or journey data with the request. See Open-Meteo’s terms and privacy information.

Artwork

Wayfarer’s paintings, the weather motion drawn over them, and their source information are included with the app and drawn on your iPhone. From version 1.10, Wayfarer also downloads sharper copies of the same paintings from its own artwork store at paintings.howjim.my, hosted by Cloudflare, and keeps them on your iPhone. These requests name only the painting and size needed; they carry no account, steps, Health data, places you have been or location. As with any web request, the host sees your device’s IP address, which Cloudflare handles under its own privacy policy. In Low Data Mode, Wayfarer skips these downloads and shows the included paintings. Each walk links to its Wikipedia page from the place name on Today and from Sources & attributions in Walks; Wikipedia receives a request only if you choose to open one of those links.

Anonymous usage statistics

To learn which parts of Wayfarer are used and make it better, Wayfarer sends a few anonymous events through TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service: when the app is opened, which of Stats, Today and Walks you view, which measure (steps, distance or stairs) and period (week, month or year) you choose in Stats, when you move to an earlier or later period or open a day, when you swipe to another place, open a walk's Wikipedia link, choose a walk, open Settings, how first-time setup finished, and, from version 1.9.2, when you open or complete a share (what kind of card and from which screen), when the offer to share a cleaner screenshot appears, and when Today shows a new record (which measure, never the number). TelemetryDeck also records basic technical information such as the app version, iOS version and device model.

These events never include your steps, distance, stairs or any other Apple Health data, the places you have seen, the weather, or your location. They are not linked to you: there is no name, email, account or advertising identifier, and TelemetryDeck hashes its device identifier so it cannot be traced back to you. They are not used for tracking or advertising, and they are never sold or shared. Read TelemetryDeck's privacy policy.

To stop sending them, open Settings → Privacy in Wayfarer and turn off Share anonymous usage.

Local data

Wayfarer stores preferences, cached walking history, and artwork rotation state locally on your device. It does not use this information for advertising or tracking and does not sell it.

Deleting data and changing permissions

Deleting Wayfarer removes its locally stored app data. It does not delete information from Apple Health. You can review or revoke Health and location permissions at any time in iOS Settings.

Children

Wayfarer is not directed specifically at children and does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone.

Changes

If Wayfarer’s data practices change, this policy and the App Store privacy information will be updated before the changed version is distributed.

Contact

Wayfarer is developed by Jimmy How. For privacy questions, email jhow@outlook.com.