App Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 21, 2026

Who this covers

This policy applies to every app and game published by CalTech Web on the App Store, including anything we release in the future. The terms below apply to all of them.

Information we collect

Our apps keep their saves on your device. The exceptions are the optional online features described below and Little Way Home's gameplay reporting, Game Center features, Message in a bottle, invites, picture and name orders, iCloud save sync, Feedback page, gifts, crash reports and rewarded videos, and Shapewise's ads and Game Center features. Our games never read your address book and never ask for access to your photo library, your location or your real name. Two things need a plain word. First, Message in a bottle reads your Game Center friends list, which Apple describes in the App Store privacy label as contacts; it is the friends you made in Game Center, not the contacts on your phone. Second, if you order a picture level, you choose one photo and send it yourself on our website. An email address is only ever collected if you choose to type one into the Feedback page or into a picture or name order form. Apple account identifiers can be associated with online records as explained below; you do not give us your Apple password.

Data stored on your device

Progress, scores, preferences, and anything else an app remembers are saved on your own device. The online features and Little Way Home reports described below send limited information to Apple's services. Removing the app removes its local data, but does not automatically delete records that have already reached an online service. See the relevant section below for data requests.

Network use

Core gameplay works offline. Optional online play, Game Center and Little Way Home's gameplay reports use a network connection, as do Message in a bottle, invites, picture and name orders, sending Feedback, Little Way Home's rewarded videos and Shapewise's ads. Apart from those optional videos and Shapewise's between-level ads, both described below, our apps show no advertising and include no advertising SDK. Apart from Shapewise, our apps never ask permission to track you across other companies' apps and websites, and never read your device's advertising identifier. Little Way Home uses Apple's CloudKit for the limited analytics described next.

Little Way Home: gameplay reports and Game Center

Versions of Little Way Home that include gameplay reporting send reports from TestFlight and App Store builds when an iCloud account and connection are available. Reports help us measure and improve puzzle difficulty. Development test builds do not upload these reports. Reporting failures do not prevent play or change your progress.

What is reported. Reports contain the level and game version, attempt number, outcome, playing time, gameplay progress, replay status and booster use, including in-game coin costs. We use a random identifier for each attempt and record the UTC day, rather than the exact time you played. We do not add your name, email, Game Center identity or device identifier to these reports.

Account association and access. Reports are stored in the game's database on Apple's CloudKit service. Apple attaches a container-specific account identifier to manage record ownership and access, and records when each record is created or updated. These reports are considered linked to you. We use gameplay measurements to produce difficulty summaries; those summaries do not include account identifiers. Other ordinary players are not given access to your gameplay reports. We do not sell the reports or use them for advertising or cross-app tracking.

Player stats shown in the game. Versions of Little Way Home that show player stats add up everyone's reports into totals for each puzzle: how many players tried it, how many won on their first try, how many tries winners needed, and how many tries were played. Once a day these totals are published in the game's public CloudKit database, where the app reads them to show a line such as "Only 20% beat this on the first try" when a level starts and on the pause screen. The totals contain no account identifier, player number, name or anything else that identifies a player.

Retention and requests. The upload queue holds at most 2,000 events for up to 30 days after they are queued. Local gameplay log files are also limited in size. Reports already delivered to CloudKit are retained for comparison across puzzle and game versions; that local limit does not automatically delete server records. You can contact us at the email address below to request access to or deletion of your reports. Removing the app does not itself delete CloudKit reports.

Game Center. Little Way Home uses Apple's Game Center for leaderboards and achievements when you sign in. It submits your collected-block score, selected crab and badge, and achievement progress, and, in versions that include it, the level you are on. The leaderboard displays Game Center player names and scores. This feature is separate from gameplay reports. You can manage Game Center in iOS Settings; Apple's privacy policy also applies to its service.

Little Way Home: Message in a bottle

Message in a bottle lets you spend coins to send a Game Center friend one item, such as a heart, a few minutes of faster play or a booster. It never carries coins.

Your friends list. To show who you can send a bottle to, the game asks iOS for your Game Center friends list, and iOS asks your permission the first time. This is the friends list in Game Center, not the Contacts app on your phone, and the game never reads your address book. Apple's App Store privacy label groups a friends list under contacts, so the label says so. The list is shown on your screen to pick a friend and is not uploaded or stored by us. If you decline, you can still play, and you can invite people by sharing a link instead.

What is sent. A bottle is one record in the game's public CloudKit database, held on Apple's servers. It holds the item, a one-way hash of your friend's Game Center player ID (never the raw ID), your Game Center player ID, your Game Center name and the time. The friend's phone looks for records addressed to its own hashed ID and shows your Game Center name with the gift. Because the database is public, other signed-in players of the game could read a bottle record, which is why it holds no email address, real name or message text.

Retention and deletion. Bottle records have no automatic expiry. A bottle you sent waits on your phone until it reaches CloudKit, and a friend can take at most five a day. Only the sender, and we as the developer, can change or delete a bottle. You can ask us to delete the bottles you sent at the email address at the bottom of this page.

Little Way Home: invites

You can share an invite link, which carries your six-digit player number, through the iOS share sheet. A new player who installs the game and then opens it from that link is linked to you, and when they clear level 10 you each get coins. That sends a record in the game's public CloudKit database addressed to your player number, holding the new player's player number and Game Center name if they are signed in (the name is never shown). Test versions of the game also accept your number typed into a Friend's code row.

Friends who both play. If you have already let the game read your Game Center friends list (see Message in a bottle), the game may, at most once an hour, send each of those friends one record saying that you play, holding your player number, so that you and each friend who also plays get coins once. It is addressed and stored like a bottle and carries no other information. The game never asks for the friends list for this on its own.

Invite records are handled like bottles, including retention and deletion, above. The invite page on littlewayhomegame.com shows the number in the link and sets no account, and we do not read your contacts to send it.

Little Way Home: picture and name orders

In some versions you can spend coins, or win a prize, for your own picture as a level, or for your name on a level. The game then opens a form on littlewayhomegame.com, a website run by CalTech Web. Nothing is uploaded from the game itself.

What you send. On the form you give an order code and your player number (both filled in by the game), a name for the level, your email address so we can reach you, an optional note and, for a picture, one photo you pick yourself, which your browser shrinks before it is sent. The form also sends a short check value from the game that tells us the order is real, and records whether you ticked the permission box described next. The form is delivered by CalTech Web's forms service at forms.caltechweb.com and emailed to us. Our website's own privacy policy covers the website.

Sending your photo to AI. The form asks, with an unticked box, whether we may send your photo to OpenAI, whose image tool redraws it as flat pixel art for the level. We do that only if you tick the box. If you leave it unticked, we draw your level on our own computer and your photo is not sent to OpenAI or anyone else. OpenAI handles a photo it receives under its own terms and privacy policy, and we do not control how long it keeps it.

How it is used and delivered. We use the photo, name and email only to build your level and to reply to you. A finished picture level is delivered to your phone as a record in the game's public CloudKit database named after your order code, which only you know; it holds the level and its name, not your photo. A name order is put on an upcoming level and nothing is delivered to your phone. We show your picture on the website only if you tick a separate box that says we may.

Retention and deletion. We keep the emailed submission and your photo while we build the level and afterwards as a record of the order. A published level and its record stay in the game. You can ask us to delete your submission and photo, and to remove a level made from them, at the email address at the bottom of this page.

Little Way Home: iCloud save sync

Little Way Home saves your progress, settings, hearts, coins and crabs to your own iCloud account using Apple's iCloud key-value storage, so it comes back on a new phone and stays in step across your devices. This copy belongs to your iCloud account. We cannot read it, it is not sent to our servers, and it is separate from the gameplay, gift, bottle and crash records above, which we can read in the game's CloudKit database. Turn it off in iOS Settings, in your name, iCloud, or delete it from iCloud storage. Removing the app does not delete it.

Little Way Home: Feedback

You can open Feedback from Little Way Home's settings and write us a note. There is no account or login, and nothing is sent unless you press Send.

What is sent. When you press Send, the app sends your message, a reply email address only if you type one, the app's version, the level number you are on and your player number. The player number is a random six-digit number the app creates so we can send that player in-game gifts. In versions that include it, your Game Center name is also sent when you are signed in to Game Center. It is sent over HTTPS to CalTech Web's forms service at forms.caltechweb.com, which emails it to the developer so we can answer you.

How it is used. We use it only for customer support, to read and answer your note. We do not use it for tracking or advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not combine it with the gameplay reports described above.

Retention and requests. We keep feedback emails only as long as needed to answer you and to keep a record of support conversations. You can ask us to delete yours at the email address at the bottom of this page.

Little Way Home: gifts

The developer can send a player free in-game gifts, such as coins and similar items. A gift is addressed to a player number or a Game Center name. When it is addressed by name, only a one-way hash of the name is stored in the gift.

What is sent. The app looks for gifts in the game's public CloudKit database. When a gift is claimed, the app saves a claim record to CloudKit with the gift, your player number, the time, the app build and what was given. Apple links that record to your iCloud account, as it does with gameplay reports.

How it is used. We use it only to deliver gifts and confirm they arrived. We never sell it and never use it for advertising or tracking. You can ask us to delete your claim records at the email address at the bottom of this page.

Little Way Home: crash reports

Versions of Little Way Home that include crash reporting use Apple's MetricKit. After a crash, iOS gives the app a diagnostic report at the next launch, and the app sends it to the game's CloudKit database.

What is reported. The report holds the app version and build, the iOS version, the device model, the exception type and code, the signal, the termination reason, the call stack of the app's code, the time range of the crash and your player number. No message text, email address or location is included.

Account association and retention. Like gameplay reports, a crash report is linked to your iCloud account. Sending needs an iCloud sign-in, and a report that has not been sent waits on your device for up to 30 days. We use crash reports only to find and fix crashes. We never sell them and never use them for advertising or tracking. You can ask us to delete yours at the email address at the bottom of this page.

Little Way Home: rewarded videos

Versions of Little Way Home that include rewarded videos show ads from Google AdMob, using Google's Mobile Ads SDK. A video plays only when you tap a video button to earn a prize, such as a heart, coins, extra room on the board or a few minutes of faster play. There are no banner ads and no ads between levels, and you can play without ever watching one.

What Google collects. When the game loads or shows a video, Google's SDK collects information from your device to show, measure and protect the ads, such as your IP address (from which an approximate location can be found), device and app information, an app-specific device identifier, how you interact with ads, and diagnostic data. Google handles this information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy. The game sends Google nothing of its own: not your player number, Game Center identity, progress, gameplay reports or Feedback.

Your choices. Where the law requires it, such as in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and some US states, the game shows Google's consent message before any ad is requested, and a Privacy choices row in the game's settings lets you change your answer at any time. The game never asks permission to track you and never gives Google your device's advertising identifier. Declining or skipping a video only means that prize is not given.

Shapewise: ads and Game Center

The free version of Shapewise shows full-screen ads from Google AdMob, using Google's Mobile Ads SDK, between levels: one every fifth level won, starting only after the first 18 levels. There are no banner ads and no rewarded videos. Buying "Full Game + No Ads" turns ads off for good. That purchase is handled entirely by Apple, as described under Purchases.

Your choices. Before any ad is requested, the game shows Google's consent message where the law requires it, such as in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and some US states, and an Ad Privacy Choices row in the game's Settings lets you change your answer at any time. The game then asks Apple's permission to track. If you allow it, Google may use your device's advertising identifier to show more relevant ads and measure them. If you don't, Google never receives it. Either way you see the same number of ads. You can change your tracking answer at any time in iOS Settings, under Privacy & Security, then Tracking.

What Google collects. When an ad loads or shows, Google's SDK collects information from your device to show, measure and protect the ads, such as your IP address (from which an approximate location can be found), device and app information, identifiers, how you interact with ads, and diagnostic data. Google handles this information under its own privacy policy, at policies.google.com/privacy. Shapewise sends Google nothing of its own: not your progress, Game Center identity or purchases.

Progress and Game Center. Shapewise keeps your progress on your device. Game Center is optional: if you sign in, the game submits your leaderboard scores and achievement progress to Apple's Game Center, and the leaderboard displays Game Center player names and scores. You can manage Game Center in iOS Settings; Apple's privacy policy also applies to its service.

Apps with optional online play

Some of our games let you play against another person. That part cannot work without sending something off your device, so we ask first, in plain words, and it stays off until you say yes. Everything in this section applies only once you have said yes, and only in an app that offers online play.

What is stored. We store the gamertag you choose and the limited information the game needs to recognize your device, connect you with the people you play against, and keep a match in progress. A gamertag is a handle you make up, not your name. We never ask for or receive your Apple Account, your email address, your real name, your contacts, or your location.

Where it is stored. It is held in that app's own database on Apple's iCloud service, under your device's iCloud account. Other players of the same app can see your gamertag, which is how a friend's device finds you. We do not run a server of our own, we do not copy this information anywhere else, and we never sell it or use it for advertising.

Game Center. Agreeing also signs you in to Apple's Game Center, which records your leaderboard scores and achievements under your own Apple account. Apple's privacy policy covers that information, and you can manage it in the Game Center section of iOS Settings.

Gamertags and player safety. Gamertags are checked against an offensive word filter before they are saved and again before another player sees one, and any player can be blocked or reported from inside the app. Reports reach us at the address at the bottom of this page, and we remove offending tags and the players who use them.

Deleting it. Open the app and use the delete option in its multiplayer settings, called Delete My Player Data. Your gamertag and everything stored for online play are deleted, online play switches back off, and your own progress stays on your device untouched. You can also email us at the address at the bottom of this page and we will delete it for you.

If you never turn it on. The app stores nothing anywhere but your own device, exactly as described above.

Purchases

Any purchase made inside one of our apps is handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. We never see or store your payment details.

Children

The data handling described above also applies when children use our apps. Our games do not ask for real names, location, your address book or your photo library. A parent or guardian should place any picture or name order, because the form asks for an email address and a photo you pick yourself. Parents or guardians can contact us at the address below with privacy questions or data requests. For apps with optional online play, gamertags are handles rather than names, and we remove tags reported to us.

Changes

If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted on this page along with a new date at the top.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about any of our apps, can be sent to the address below.