The short version
Echoes has no account and no sign-in. Your recordings, transcripts, titles, topics, chat answers, and reminders are created and kept on your iPhone. There are no analytics tools in the app, no advertising, and no third-party AI service. Nothing you say is sold or shared. The only outside service Echoes talks to is RevenueCat, which checks your App Store purchase so the app knows it is unlocked.
What Echoes stores on your iPhone
Everything the app makes, it keeps in its own private storage:
- the audio file for each recording;
- the transcript, title, date, and length of each echo;
- the topics your echoes are filed under;
- your chat questions and the answers Echoes gave;
- which echoes are waiting to come back to you, and what you answered when they did; and
- your settings, such as audio quality and how often echoes return.
This uses Apple's standard on-device storage. Audio is written to a folder only Echoes can read. Echoes does not use iCloud sync and has no server of its own to sync to. Depending on your iPhone backup settings, Apple may include app data in a device backup, which Apple handles under its own terms and privacy policy.
Transcription, titles, and topics
Your iPhone does this work. Echoes uses Apple's on-device speech recognition and Apple Intelligence to write down what you said, give the echo a title, and file it under a topic. Your voice and your words are not sent to a server operated by JPM Inc., to OpenAI, or to any other AI provider. This is also why Echoes requires iPhone 15 Pro or newer on iOS 26: that is where the work can run on the device instead of somewhere else.
Chat
When you ask Echoes a question, it reads your own notes and answers from them, entirely on your iPhone. The question, the notes it looked at, and the answer never leave the device. Each answer names the note it came from so you can read your own words and check.
The microphone
Echoes asks for microphone access the first time you record, not before. The microphone is only live while a recording is running, and you can see it running. If you decline, the rest of the app still opens, but recording will not work until you allow it in iOS Settings.
Notifications and the Return
Echoes decides which echoes sounded like something you meant to act on, and it makes that decision on your iPhone. When one is due to come back, Echoes schedules a local notification, which is a reminder your own iPhone delivers to you. Nothing is sent to a server, and no notification service sees your words. The notification quotes what you said, so if you would rather it did not appear on your Lock Screen, turn Echoes notifications off in iOS Settings or set previews to unlock only.
Echoes asks for notification permission the first time it has a reason to, and explains why before asking. Declining is fine. The rest of the app works.
Subscriptions, Apple, and RevenueCat
Echoes is paid, and Apple handles the payment. Apple gives Echoes a receipt for what you bought. Echoes uses RevenueCat to check that receipt and confirm your subscription or lifetime purchase is active.
RevenueCat creates an anonymous identifier for your install and may process purchase and subscription history, receipt data, basic app and device details, and the IP address the request came from. It does not receive your name or email from Echoes, and it never receives your recordings, transcripts, topics, or chat. RevenueCat is the only third party Echoes sends anything to.
Apple and RevenueCat handle this information under their own policies:
No analytics, no tracking
There is no analytics SDK in Echoes. No PostHog, no Firebase, no Facebook SDK, no advertising identifier, and no crash reporter that phones home. Echoes does not build a profile of you, and there is nothing to sell, because nothing is collected. Apple may show you its own App Store and device-level metrics, which Apple collects under its policies, not ours.
Export and sharing
You can take everything with you. Export writes your transcripts to the Files app as Markdown or JSON, with the audio included if you ask for it. You can also share a single echo through the iOS share sheet. In both cases you are the one moving it, and once it lands somewhere else, that place's rules apply, not ours.
Deleting your data
In Echoes, open Settings and choose to delete everything. That removes your recordings, transcripts, topics, chat history, and pending returns from the iPhone. Deleting the app removes its data as well. Neither one cancels a subscription or erases the purchase records Apple and RevenueCat keep, and an existing Apple device backup may still hold a copy until Apple replaces or deletes it under your backup settings.
Website visits and support email
This policy is hosted on jamesmckinney.xyz. The website may use Google Analytics to collect basic browser, device, and visit information when analytics is enabled. Google explains how it handles that information in its Privacy Policy. That is the website, not the app. If you email for support, the email address, your message, and anything you attach will be received and used to answer you. Please do not attach a recording or transcript unless it is needed to explain the problem.
Children
Echoes is not directed to children under 13, and JPM Inc. does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through the app.
Changes to this policy
If the way Echoes handles data changes, this page is updated and the date at the top changes with it. A material change may also be explained in the app or in its App Store listing.
Contact
Echoes is offered by JPM Inc. Questions about privacy can be sent to james@jamesmckinney.xyz.