Approach Traffic Control

Privacy Policy

Effective 23 September 2026. Updated 12 October 2026.

What the app keeps on your device

• Your game settings, like appearance, theme and haptics.
• Saved shifts you can resume, and your logbook and stats.
• A note that you have PRO, so it works offline. The real purchase record is kept by Apple.
• On TestFlight and test builds only: a note that you claimed PRO as a tester. It stays on the device and is never synced.

iCloud

If you’re signed in to iCloud, a fixed list of game settings syncs between your devices through Apple’s iCloud key-value storage, in your own iCloud account. That list covers things like appearance, theme, sound and the clock.

These never sync through iCloud: your purchase status, the tester note, saved shifts, and your logbook.

Your logbook and stats are part of your device’s own backup (iCloud Backup, or a backup to your computer). So they come with you when you restore a new device. You can also export them as a file and import that file on another device. The app sends the file nowhere. You choose where it goes.

Apple Watch

If your iPhone has a paired Apple Watch with the app installed, the iPhone sends the watch what it needs to show the game. Apple’s WatchConnectivity carries it directly between your own devices. It never passes through a server of ours. It’s game data only, nothing about you.

With PRO, the iPhone sends:

• Your theme and appearance setting, and that PRO is unlocked.
• While a shift is open, its numbers: the airport, points and margin, landings, departures, violations, go-arounds, planes on the scope, the clock, whether it’s running, stopped or over, whether it’s overtime or an open shift, and how it ended. These update when the shift changes, and otherwise at most every 30 seconds.
• While the watch app is open, the live scope about once a second: the airport’s runways, the traffic (callsign, position, heading, altitude, and whether it’s a departure), and its alerts.
• Today: the date, the kind of day or the special day’s name, today’s Worked, Clean and Busy marks, and your streak in days. This updates when it changes.

Without PRO, the iPhone sends only your appearance setting, and that PRO is locked. Nothing about a shift, no traffic, and nothing about today.

The watch keeps the last settings and shift numbers it got, so it can show them when it opens. It doesn’t keep the traffic. It keeps today’s data until midnight.

The small game on the watch keeps its own tally on the watch. After you play it, the watch sends that tally to your iPhone, directly between your devices: your best run, the triangles you’ve flown, your time flown, and its violations. That’s the only thing the watch sends. The iPhone keeps it for the Approach Log. It is never synced through iCloud and never included in an exported file.

Without a paired watch that has the app, nothing is sent.

Game Center

If you’re signed in to Game Center, the app sends Apple your score at the end of a shift, for the leaderboard, and any achievements you earned. Apple stores them under your Game Center account, and Apple’s privacy policy covers them. If you’re not signed in, nothing is sent.

Purchases

PRO is a yearly subscription that renews automatically. Early players may have a one-time purchase instead. Apple handles both through StoreKit.

The app checks your purchase on your device, using the signed record Apple keeps there. It’s never sent to us or to any server of ours. We never get your name, Apple Account or payment details. Apple’s privacy policy covers the purchase. You manage or cancel the subscription in your Apple Account settings.

Send Feedback

Send Feedback, in Settings and in How to Play, opens a new email in your own Mail app, addressed to us. Under your message it adds the app version, your device model, its iOS version, and whether you have PRO.

If Attach Last Shift’s Log is on, it also attaches your last shift’s record from the logbook: its airport, shift, counts and flights.

You can read and change all of it before you send. Nothing is sent unless you tap Send. We use what you send only to reply to you and to improve the game.

Apple Intelligence

On a device with Apple Intelligence, while Write With Apple Intelligence is on in Settings, the app can ask Apple’s on-device model to write some of its words:

• Pilots’ radio calls.
• A sentence about a landmark, for the Supervisor’s handover at the start of a shift. It’s written from a real fact in the airport’s own file.
• One sentence of Today’s Briefing about who is flying on a special day. It’s written from that day’s own line and the kinds of planes flying.
• A flight’s story.

The model runs on your device, never on a server. It is given only game facts. The lines it writes are kept in the app’s own folder on your device.

The handover may mention your own record, like your best points at that airport. The app works that out on your device from your logbook. The model never sees it.

A test feature, off unless you turn it on: if you type a question into the search in How to Play or the Logbook and send it, the app may give that question to the same on-device model to understand what you’re asking. The question never leaves your device.

What we don’t collect

• No advertising ID.
• No third-party analytics.
• No email or password. There is no account.

Crashes and diagnostics

iOS gives the app daily performance and diagnostic reports (MetricKit). The app writes them to the device’s own log and sends them nowhere.

If you opt in through iOS, Apple may share anonymous crash reports with the developer through App Store Connect. You control this in your device’s Analytics & Improvements settings.

Children

The game is made for a general audience. It doesn’t knowingly collect personal information from children.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email brian@briantannous.com.