Privacy policy

Who this covers

This policy covers the Turtle GIF Keyboard iPhone app and its keyboard extension, made by HEROMINUTES (“we”, “us”), and the small relay service the keyboard talks to. It does not cover the HEROMINUTES training app or the herominutes.com website, which have their own policies.

What stays on your iPhone

• Everything you type. Your text is read by the keyboard on your device and held in memory only while the keyboard is open. It is cleared when the keyboard closes. It is never written to storage, never logged, and never sent to us, to GIPHY, or to anyone else.
• Messages you copy to reply to. If you use “Reply to copied message”, the keyboard reads the text you copied only after you tap, and only on your device. It is treated exactly like typed text.
• Spelling and capitals. The keyboard fixes the word you just typed and starts sentences with a capital using your iPhone’s own on-device spell checker. It learns nothing, keeps no personal dictionary, and sends nothing. The only thing held in memory is the last correction, so Delete can undo it, until your next key.
• Beat Mode. If you turn on the optional Beat Mode, the keyboard plays a note for each key you press and remembers a short list of the last 32 notes you played and which keys played them, in memory only, until you press Enter or close the keyboard, when it is wiped. The keyboard’s usual short copy of your message for its preview strip works as it always does. The song it plays is made on your iPhone, exists only while it plays, and nothing about it is saved or sent. The only things stored are whether Beat Mode is on and which sound you chose.
• The understanding of your message. This is done by Apple’s on-device language model, part of Apple Intelligence, which runs on your iPhone. We do not use any outside AI service, and no AI key or account is involved. If your iPhone can’t run the model, the keyboard uses a fixed list of reaction words instead of your own words.

What leaves your iPhone

When you tap the turtle, the keyboard sends the following to our relay service over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection:

• Two or three search keywords, such as “pizza” and “hungry”. Before sending, the keyboard removes digits, links, email addresses, first names it recognises as people’s names, and any long run of words copied from your message. A name you type on its own, such as a famous person you are searching for, is kept because you chose to search for it.
• The ID of a GIF, when you tap one to copy it, so the relay can fetch the picture.
• Your connection address (IP address), as with any request on the internet. Our code does not store it, log it or use it for anything.

The keywords are sent in the body of the request, not in a web address, so they do not appear in links or browser-style histories.

The relay and GIPHY

Our relay asks GIPHY for GIFs that match your keywords and sends the results back to your phone. It also relays the GIF images themselves. This means GIPHY never contacts your iPhone and never sees your connection address. GIPHY receives the search keywords from our relay, and GIFs are provided by GIPHY under its own terms. Results are limited to GIPHY’s PG rating, and we filter out results and search words that are scary, gross or sexual.

The relay runs on Vercel, our hosting provider. Like any host, Vercel keeps routine technical server logs (such as request time and connection address) for a limited period for security and reliability. We do not add any logging of keywords or content, and we do not use those logs to identify or profile anyone.

If an abuse limit is switched on, the relay may count requests from a connection address for a short time to keep the service available. That count is not linked to any content.

Why the keyboard asks for “Full Access”

iOS shows a general warning for every third-party keyboard that asks for Full Access. Turtle GIF needs it for two things only: to reach the relay over the internet, and to place the GIF you choose on your iPhone’s clipboard so you can paste it. Full Access is not used to send what you type.

The GIF is placed on the clipboard for this iPhone only (it is not shared to your other devices through Universal Clipboard) and expires after two minutes. The keyboard never copies your own text to the clipboard.

What we do not collect

• No account, name, email address or phone number.
• No analytics, crash-reporting, advertising or tracking tools.
• No contacts, photos, location or microphone data.
• No record of what you typed, which GIFs you saw, or which you chose.

How long we keep things

We do not keep your keywords, GIF choices or messages. Nothing about your use of the keyboard is stored by us. See the note above about routine host logs.

Children

Turtle GIF is a general-audience keyboard and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone.

The beta

Turtle GIF Keyboard is currently in private beta on Apple’s TestFlight. Apple’s TestFlight service has its own privacy terms and may share crash and usage information with developers; that is separate from this app and we do not use it to identify anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update the date at the top of this page. Any change that affects what leaves your iPhone will be explained here before it ships.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Reach HEROMINUTES through the contact page.