Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 15, 2026

Who we are

Hourly News is published by Urban Apps, LLC. This policy describes how the Hourly News iOS and Mac apps and the hourlynewsapp.com website handle your information.

Information we collect

Device identifiers

The app generates an opaque device UUID and binds it to your device using Apple App Attest. We use this UUID to authenticate your device and to associate it with your subscription state. The UUID is not linked to your Apple ID, your name, or any other personally identifying information.

Push notification tokens

If you enable notifications, the app sends Apple's push notification token to our servers so we can deliver app announcements. We use these tokens only to send notifications related to the Hourly News app.

Subscription receipts

When you start, renew, or cancel a subscription, the Apple App Store sends us a signed receipt that includes the transaction identifier, the product identifier, and the expiration date. We use these receipts only to verify that your subscription is active. Payment details are handled by Apple — we never see your payment card or your Apple ID.

Usage data

If Share Usage Data is turned on — it is on by default, and you can turn it off at any time in the app's settings — the app reports how it is being used, so we can tell which news sources are worth keeping, fixing, or adding. That report contains:

• which of the built-in news sources you have switched on;
• the name and feed address of any custom source you have added, and whether it is a direct audio link;
• one record each time a source starts playing and each time one plays to the end, noting the source, the time, and whether it happened on iPhone or iPad, on Mac, or on Apple Watch.

Private feeds are never reported. A custom source stays on your device if its address carries a sign-in or a token of any kind, or if it is hosted on Patreon, Supercast, Supporting Cast, or Memberful.

These records are attached to the device identifier described above, never to you — there is no account to attach them to. We do not record the audio you hear, anything you type, or where you are. Individual playback records are deleted after 90 days; what survives is a daily total per news source that identifies no device.

Turning Share Usage Data off does more than stop the reporting. The next time the app reaches our servers it tells them to delete what is already stored for your device — your source list, your custom source reports, and every playback record.

Crash reports

When the app crashes, it sends a diagnostic report to Sentry, our crash reporting provider, so we can find and fix the fault. The report describes the state of the app at the moment it failed: where in the code it stopped, your device model, and your operating system version. Sentry is configured not to attach personally identifying information, and we do not use its performance monitoring or its app-hang detection.

Server logs

Our servers record standard request information — IP address, user agent, request path, and timestamp — for a short period. This is used for security, abuse prevention, and rate limiting.

What we don't collect

We do not collect your name, email address, mailing address, contacts, precise location, microphone input, or browsing history. The Hourly News apps contain no advertising SDKs, ask for no advertising identifier, and do not track you across other apps or websites. The only third-party SDK in the apps is Sentry, used solely for the crash reports described above.

Third parties

We rely on a small number of service providers to operate the app:

• Apple — App Attest, Apple Push Notification service, and the App Store. See Apple's Privacy Policy.
• Amazon Web Services — hosting and content delivery. See AWS's Privacy Notice.
• Sentry — crash reporting. See Sentry's Privacy Policy.

Children's privacy

Hourly News is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or port the personal information we hold about you, and to object to or restrict certain processing. Because the device UUID is not tied to any personally identifying information, deletion is most easily accomplished by uninstalling the app. If you want us to also purge any server-side records associated with your device, email us the device UUID shown in the app's settings and we will remove it.

For the usage data described above there is a faster route than writing to us: turning off Share Usage Data in the app's settings erases what we hold for your device.

Changes to this policy

If we update this policy, we will change the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and post the new version at this URL.

Contact

Questions or requests about this policy can be sent to privacy@urbanapps.com.