Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Bread in the Oven (the app) and alufocus.com are operated, developed and maintained by Binjie Tu under the Alu Focus brand. Alu Focus is a brand name, not a separate legal entity. This policy covers both. For questions about privacy, personal information or deleting data, email support@alufocus.com.

2. Information the app uses

The app has no advertising, cross-app tracking or third-party behavioral analytics SDKs. It processes the following information on your device to run timers, keep records, show statistics and remember your preferences.

• Focus records: start and end times, planned and actual duration, completion or interruption status, recipe and focus category. Completed sessions are saved. If you end a session early after at least 1 minute of focus, it is saved as an ended-early session. Interrupted sessions under 1 minute do not become focus history.
• Content you enter: your focus task, session notes and manually added records; task titles, categories, notes, scheduled dates, completion status, order, last-used focus setup and links to focus sessions. Task notes and individual session notes are stored separately. Task-linked focus also stores effective focus time, parked status and reward-processing links so timers can resume without redeeming the same time twice.
• Preferences: category names and colors, ambient sounds, alert sounds, haptics, daily reminder time, timer mode, keeping the screen awake during focus and whether iCloud saving is enabled.
• Rewards and statistics: total focus minutes, baking results and the little gifts you have earned.
• Achievements: effective focus intervals, source identifiers, the time zone used to count days, evidence that requirements were met, badges and whether you have viewed them. These exclude paused or duplicate time and preserve earned achievements. Task titles and notes are not copied into the achievement store. Unreleased recipe rewards are not granted early.
• Local reward checks: a randomly generated installation identifier, focus-source identifiers, effective durations, finalized food choices and results, linked task snapshots, and markers recording whether an animation was shown or a final record was published. These restore local timers and prevent duplicate rewards, animations or publication. Active focus, unredeemed time and these local markers do not sync through the app's iCloud feature. Clearing all local data removes them. Legacy requests already using cloud-based reward processing also use an app-scoped iCloud account identifier and a data-clearing generation identifier, not your Apple Account password.
• Home decoration is not yet available. If you used a development build, existing decoration layouts and acquired-item records are retained to avoid losing them during an upgrade.
• Screen Time selections: when you choose the app allowlist feature, iOS provides opaque tokens for the apps you select. These tokens do not let this app read content inside those apps.
• System availability: notification permission, Screen Time permission and the iCloud status needed to determine whether a feature is available.
• Achievement tilt effects: while you view achievement details, device orientation is processed live on your device to gently move the wooden carving. This data is only used for the current view. It is not recorded, uploaded or used to identify or analyze your activity. Processing stops when you leave the details, put the app in the background or enable Reduce Motion. Achievements remain viewable on unsupported devices.
• Purchases and Pro access: product identifiers, purchase completion, current entitlements, expiry, revocation and free-trial eligibility are handled through Apple StoreKit. Apple handles payment credentials, bank card information and your Apple Account password; the app does not receive them.
• Widget snapshots: aggregated focus minutes and session counts for today and this week, today's baked quantity, the most recent recipe identifier and whether Pro is active. These provide the Home Screen summary.

3. Where information is stored

With iCloud saving off, focus records, tasks and their links, home decoration layouts and acquired-item records, and preferences stay on your device. Local data may not be recoverable after you uninstall the app or clear its data.

With iCloud saving on, SwiftData and Apple CloudKit save completed focus history, baking results, tasks and final history links, decoration layouts and acquired-item records to your private iCloud account. They can sync between devices signed in to the same Apple Account. Active timers, paused state, pending baking reveals and unredeemed task focus stay separately on each device. These unfinished states are neither uploaded nor restored from iCloud. Reopening the app normally can restore local progress, but uninstalling, clearing local data or device failure may lose unfinished progress. Alu Focus does not run a separate account server and cannot view your private iCloud data.

New focus sessions and task focus are redeemed on the device, even with iCloud on; receiving baking results does not require online confirmation. Each device redeems only its own accumulated focus time. Unredeemed time is not combined across devices. Final history is saved locally first and then syncs asynchronously through iCloud. Receiving history on another device does not replay the reveal or award food again. To prevent duplicate redemption, legacy cloud reservations and finalized requests still use their original protocol and a separate private CloudKit record zone. The original device must handle them online. A failure keeps the records and choices available for retry, without drawing a new result. Turning iCloud off does not turn these requests into local rewards. Legacy unfinished cloud records are retained but do not automatically open a timer or reveal in the new version.

Widget summaries are stored in a local App Group container shared only by the app and its Widget Extension. Displaying a widget does not upload these summaries to Alu Focus servers. Purchases and subscriptions are handled by Apple's App Store and StoreKit.

Achievement evidence and badges live in a separate local store and do not sync through iCloud. They may not be recoverable after uninstalling or clearing all data. The intervals used to check effective focus time are saved with final focus records and can sync with that history when iCloud is on. Ongoing intervals remain local.

Versions with growth-based recipe unlocks also save permanent unlock records containing the recipe identifier, rule version, random source identifier and unlock time, but not task titles, notes or full achievement evidence. With iCloud off, these records remain local. With it on, they sync through the same private iCloud account. Existing local unlocks are added to the sync store; other devices can use the recipe when they receive the record, without awarding food again. Only successfully uploaded unlocks can be restored after reinstalling or changing devices. Being offline, insufficient storage or sync errors may delay restoration.

4. Website logs

The website does not require an account, show ads or use third-party behavioral analytics or cross-site tracking scripts. To serve pages, protect the site and diagnose problems, its server processes normal access logs, such as visit time, requested address, network address, browser or device type, and response status.

Access logs are normally kept for no more than 14 days and rotated automatically. Relevant records may be retained separately for as long as necessary to investigate a security incident, meet a legal obligation or resolve a fault. We do not use these logs for advertising profiles or sell this information.

5. Why permissions are requested

• Notifications: for completed or failed focus sessions and daily reminders you choose to enable. Refusing notifications does not prevent basic timing.
• Screen Time and Family Controls: requested only when you choose strict focus or the app allowlist, to restrict access according to your selections. You can revoke permission in system settings.
• Live Activities: show your current timer on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. They are not used for ads, profiling or tracking.
• Device orientation: only for the tilt effect in achievement details. The app does not read step counts or fitness history. Viewing and sharing achievements still work without orientation data. Reduce Motion disables the tilt effect.
• iCloud: used to sync the app's records and preferences only when you enable iCloud saving.
• Home Screen widgets: read the aggregate snapshot written by the app to the shared container to show today's or this week's focus summary. They do not verify transactions directly or read your full focus history.
• Photos: add-only access is requested only when you choose Save to Photos, to save a share card created on your device. The app does not read your other photos.

6. Sharing and external services

Share cards are created on your device. Only when you choose Share and a recipient does the system share sheet pass an image, text or download link to the app you select. Cards are saved to Photos only when you choose that action. Alu Focus does not upload share content automatically or read your other photos.

To provide a current download link after the app is listed, sharing may send the app's bundle identifier to Apple's public lookup service and cache the returned App Store URL on your device. Apple handles normal network information from this request under its own policies. This lookup does not give Alu Focus your Apple Account or purchase information.

When you open feature requests, bug reports, email or an App Store page, you leave the app or enter a third-party page. The provider may process your submitted content, device information, network address or cookies under its policies. UserJot receives what you enter when you choose to submit a request or report. Include contact details, screenshots and device information only as needed, and avoid unrelated sensitive information.

• Apple services: App Store, StoreKit, iCloud, notifications, ActivityKit, FamilyControls, ManagedSettings and DeviceActivity. The DeviceActivity monitoring extension only removes focus restrictions when they expire; it does not read or upload detailed usage of other apps.
• UserJot: receives feature requests and bug reports.
• The email and sharing services you choose.

7. Your choices, retention and deletion

Local data stays until you clear it in the app, uninstall the app or the system removes it. Your Apple Account and iCloud settings also govern storage and deletion of iCloud data.

Clearing data involved in legacy cloud reward processing requires iCloud to be enabled and an internet connection. If reward processing is underway, clearing all data waits for the original device to finish. An unavailable original device is not automatically bypassed. Cloud control records with random operation identifiers, the initiating-device identifier and a clearing-generation identifier coordinate rewards and deletion. Once permission to clear is obtained, the app updates the random clearing generation, deletes cloud focus reservations and reward receipts, clears local records, then releases the control state. A failure preserves uncleared records and retry state; it does not automatically take over another device's operation. The random clearing generation does not contain the original task, focus duration or reward result. You can also delete the app's cloud data through iCloud storage management in system settings.

Deleting individual focus history does not delete earned decorations. Clearing all data also deletes decoration layouts, their saved versions and acquired decoration records, and restores the default home screen.

Deleting individual focus history does not revoke earned badges or recipe unlocks. Minimal timing evidence and source identifiers already collected remain in the achievement store to prevent duplicate awards. Clearing all data removes this evidence, achievements, viewed status and recipe unlock records. With iCloud saving on, deletion of unlock records in the shared store can sync. Clearing locally with sync off does not mean the cloud copy has been deleted.

You can delete an individual focus record through its More action in the Bread Rack timeline or the daily statistics view. Settings > Privacy Policy also lets you clear all focus history, tasks and their links, task text and little gifts. Deletion requires confirmation and cannot be undone after clearing is complete. Deleting a task alone does not delete its focus history, saved historical names or baking results. Its deletion marker and links are retained to sync the deletion state, and are removed when you clear all data.

App settings let you turn off daily reminders, ambient sound, keeping the screen awake or iCloud saving. iPhone system settings let you revoke notification, Photos, Screen Time or Live Activity access. You can view and cancel auto-renewing subscriptions through the Pro page or Apple Account subscription management. To ask about or request deletion of information you submitted to a feedback service, email support@alufocus.com.

8. Younger users

The app is intended for general use. It is not designed to collect personal information from minors and does not require registration, a real name, phone number or identity document. Minors should use features involving system permissions or sending information externally with a parent or guardian's guidance. If you are a guardian and believe a minor has sent us unnecessary information, contact support@alufocus.com so we can address it.

9. Security and policy updates

We use safeguards proportionate to the risks of the features and aim to minimize the data the app handles. No device, network or cloud service can be completely secure. Please protect your device passcode and Apple Account.

We update this policy's version and dates when features, data practices or applicable requirements change. For material changes to the purposes, methods or categories of personal information processed, we will provide notice through release notes, an in-app notice or the website.