Privacy Policy
Nothing you read, scan or import is sent to us, and there is no account to create. Tellable shares anonymous usage (which features are used and whether they work) so we can make it better, and you can turn that off.
What Tellable does not do
- No accounts. You never sign in.
- No tracking, no advertising identifier, no ads.
- Your documents, their titles, file names and links, your searches, questions, notes and flashcards are never sent to us or to anyone.
- No crash reporting service. If something goes wrong, you can choose to email us a report yourself.
- The open-source parts of the app, including the voices and the speech software, run on your device.
Anonymous usage
With "Share anonymous usage" on (Settings, Sharing & Privacy; it is on when you first open Tellable), the app sends TelemetryDeck, a privacy-focused analytics service hosted in the EU, short anonymous signals about how it is used and whether it works: for example that a page of the welcome tour was shown, that a PDF was added or could not be read, how long the first sentence took to start, which voice and speed were used, or that the plans were opened. Each signal has a fixed name and values from a fixed list, such as a file type or a rough size ("small", "book"); none carries your documents, titles, file names, links, searches, questions, notes or the time of day. TelemetryDeck also receives the app version, the device model, the system version, language and region, and accessibility settings such as text size. To count how many people use a feature without knowing who they are, a random identifier for this install is scrambled on your device and again with a secret on TelemetryDeck's server; it is not linked to you and cannot be used to track you across apps. Turn the switch off and nothing more is sent, and anything still waiting to be sent is dropped.
The App Store privacy label for Tellable lists Usage Data, Diagnostics (performance), Purchases (purchase history, never prices or payment details) and Identifiers (the scrambled install identifier), all "Data Not Linked to You" and none used for tracking.
Where your documents live
Documents you scan, import or paste, your reading position, your settings, and the audio Tellable renders so it can play without delay are all stored inside the app on your device. They are protected by the device's file encryption. Deleting a document in Tellable removes it, and deleting the app removes everything, except a copy you chose to keep in iCloud (below).
Asking a document
Ask answers from the document itself, on your device, with Apple Intelligence; your questions and your documents never leave it. To find the passages an answer comes from, Tellable keeps a small index of each document (where its passages are, as numbers, never a second copy of the text) inside the app, built on your device and deleted with the document. Apple Intelligence writes the answer from those passages alone, on the device, under Apple's own rules. Nothing about a question or an answer is sent anywhere or kept, except in a note you choose to save. On an iPhone or iPad without Apple Intelligence, none of this runs.
When Tellable uses the network
Tellable works offline. Its voices are built in, so nothing is downloaded to read aloud. Apart from the anonymous usage above, the app uses the network only in the cases below, and each one is your choice.
Reading a web link
If you paste a link, Tellable fetches that page once, on your request, with the pictures in it, so it can read it to you. While you wait, Tellable also loads the page's style sheets, fonts and pictures to show you a preview of the page as it looks in a browser. No script on the page runs, no cookies are kept or sent, nothing else on the page is loaded, and the preview is deleted as soon as the article is ready. To find the article itself, Tellable runs Mozilla's Readability (the reader view of Firefox) on your device, inside that same sealed view; it ships with the app and sends nothing anywhere. Only the article's own pictures are fetched. Tellable does not fetch the page again unless you ask. A page you share from Safari comes as Safari shows it, and Tellable makes no request for it or its pictures; a page too large for Safari to hand over (over 5 MB) comes as its link instead. A link shared from another app, or that large a page, is fetched by Tellable and read the same way, with only the article's own pictures and no preview.
Browsing in Websites
Websites (Add, then Websites) is a browser inside Tellable for adding the page you are on. The pages you open there work as they do in any browser: their scripts run, and they load what they need from their own sites and the sites they use, under those sites' own policies. What you type in the address bar that is not an address is sent to DuckDuckGo as a search. Sign-ins, cookies and other website data are kept on your device in a store of Tellable's own, apart from Safari and from the link reading above, and Settings, Sharing & Privacy, Clear website data empties it. Tellable remembers the sites you have added pages from, on your device, for the Websites start page. Pages cannot use your camera, microphone or motion sensors. Tellable does not check addresses against a fraudulent-website list, because that check would send the addresses you visit to a lookup service. The addresses you visit, your searches and the pages you read are never logged and never sent to us.
iCloud sync, if you turn it on
iCloud sync is off until you turn it on in Tellable's Settings. With it on, your documents, your place in each one, your notes, collections, Up Next and a few settings are kept in your own private iCloud storage, through Apple's iCloud, so they appear on your other devices signed in to the same account. That storage belongs to your Apple Account and counts against your iCloud plan. We cannot read it, and nothing is sent to us. Turn sync off and everything stays on this device, and the copy in your iCloud stays there, yours to keep or delete. Sync adds nothing to the App Store privacy label, because the data never reaches us.
Apple's services
Purchases go through Apple's App Store, which uses the network on Apple's side (see Purchases below). The renewal reminder for the yearly plan is a notification scheduled on your device; no server sends it.
Purchases
Tellable Pro is sold through the App Store. Apple handles payment, billing, renewal and refunds, and Tellable only checks on the device whether a purchase is active. We do not see your name, your payment details or your Apple Account.
Children
Tellable collects no personal data from anyone, including children; the anonymous usage above is the same for everyone and can be turned off. The App Store age rating describes the app's content.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version will appear on this page with a new effective date. The app's behaviour described here is also checked by automated tests in the project.
Contact
Questions about privacy go to support+tellable@getmakingthings.com.
Making Things