Curious

The short version

Curious is an account-free iPhone app from FigLantern LLC. You can capture a curiosity with text, voice, a photo, and optional location context. Capture, storage, and supported transformations happen on your iPhone. Cloud research is off until you allow it in the app.

Curious does not ask for your name or email address. Hosted records are still linked to pseudonymous installation and App Store-derived identifiers so the service can authorize requests, apply research quotas, verify App Store acquisition, and delete data. Account-free does not mean fully anonymous. This free version has no in-app purchases or subscriptions and does not synchronize your library between iPhones.

When available on iOS 27, Curious may use Apple Private Cloud Compute for eligible stable questions, including questions with selected photos, after you allow cloud research. Questions that need current facts, citations, consequential advice, or an answer Apple cannot adequately provide use FigLantern's external route through OpenRouter and Exa only after that same permission. Availability depends on the device, language, region, Apple Intelligence settings, network, service status, and applicable limits.

We do not use Curious data for advertising, marketing, cross-app tracking, or sale to data brokers. We do not add advertising or tracking SDKs to the app.

Data Curious handles

Data that may be uploaded and retained

Depending on the features you choose, Curious may store:

• your curiosity or question text, follow-up text, research status, answers, and cited sources;
• photos you select for a curiosity;
• precise or approximate location when you choose to attach location to a curiosity;
• an app-generated installation identifier and separate installation credential;
• an opaque identifier derived from an App Store-signed transaction;
• product interactions needed to operate research, quotas, and deletion;
• content-free research quota, reliability, abuse-prevention, and cost-accounting records; and
• App Store verification and included research allowance records.

If you grant Precise Location and attach location to a curiosity, precise coordinates may be sent for location-dependent research. If iOS provides Approximate Location, Curious can use that instead. The app remains usable when location is denied or omitted.

Data that stays on your device

• raw voice recordings;
• drafts and media that have not been uploaded;
• location that you do not attach to a curiosity;
• permission state, setup choices, local diagnostics, and other purely on-device settings; and
• exact local values that never cross the hosted boundary.

Voice is transcribed on-device. The resulting question text may be uploaded if you save it and use a hosted feature. Selecting a photo or granting location access does not make your entire photo library or ongoing location history available to FigLantern.

Inputs sent to Apple language models

Apple requests may include the saved question, its full saved text transcript, and bounded prior question-and-answer context. Supported text transformations use the on-device model and stay on your iPhone. Eligible Private Cloud Compute requests may also include the selected photos as decoded image pixels, without embedded photo metadata, and relevant location you attached, with coordinates rounded to two decimal places. Raw recordings are not sent. Private Cloud Compute requests go directly to Apple only after you allow cloud research; they do not pass through FigLantern, OpenRouter, or Exa. When Apple provides a sufficient answer, Curious does not also submit that question for external research.

How we use data

We use the data above only to:

• capture, research, organize, display, share copies of, and delete curiosities;
• save hosted research results and associate included allowance with an opaque App Store customer;
• authorize this installation and revoke its access when its hosted data is erased;
• apply research quotas, verify App Store acquisition, prevent abuse, and contain service costs;
• operate, secure, debug, and improve service reliability using minimized operational records; and
• send push notifications when cloud research finishes, if you allow notifications.

We do not use curiosity text, photos, location, answers, or sources to build an advertising profile. Coordinates are not placed in logs, analytics, notifications, or content-free operational accounting.

Service providers

These companies process data for app functionality. They are not Curious advertising or tracking partners. We require service providers handling app data for us to protect it consistently with this policy, our agreements, and applicable law.

• Render hosts the application backend. Read Render's privacy policy.
• Neon, a Databricks company hosts the database. Read the Databricks privacy notice.
• OpenRouter processes cloud AI research. Curious requires Zero Data Retention routing for inference and denies inference-provider data collection. Read the OpenRouter privacy policy and Zero Data Retention documentation.
• Exa may receive a web-search query generated through OpenRouter. The research prompt instructs the model to use generalized factual search terms and not include names, coordinates, verbatim context, conversation text, or photo details. Curious cannot deterministically inspect every generated Exa query before it is sent. OpenRouter's inference ZDR guarantee does not cover Exa, and Exa's standard policy may permit retention or use of search queries. Read Exa's privacy policy.
• Apple provides on-device Foundation Models, Private Cloud Compute for eligible iOS 27 requests, StoreKit and App Store transaction verification, and APNs notifications. Private Cloud Compute availability and daily limits are controlled by Apple. Read Apple's privacy policy, App Store & Privacy, and Apple's Private Cloud Compute developer documentation.

Providers may process technical request information such as IP address and timestamps as part of operating and securing their services. Their own policies govern that provider-side processing.

Sharing a curiosity

Your library and follow-up conversations are private in Curious. In this version, tapping Share opens the standard iOS share sheet with a copy of the question, answer, sources, and uncertainty. A photo is added only after you choose Include Photo. Location, raw audio, installation credentials, and the rest of your library are not included.

The receiving app or person controls a copy after you share it. Deleting the curiosity or using Delete All Data does not recall material already shared outside Curious.

Retention and deletion

Deleting one curiosity

Deleting an individual curiosity removes it from normal product paths, cancels related work, requests deletion of its hosted external-research record, and removes the local item from this iPhone. Hosted deletion of an individual item is a soft deletion and is not the permanent server-erasure boundary.

Delete All Data

Delete All Data permanently removes hosted Curious data for the associated opaque customer, including active and previously deleted curiosities, uploaded media, answers and copied answer context, follow-ups, push state, and linked installation access. After the server confirms deletion, the initiating device removes its local library, raw audio, synchronization cursor, push token, and installation credential.

Limited content-free records may remain:

• a one-way deletion receipt for up to 30 days so a lost response can be retried safely;
• content-free operational and research accounting for up to 90 days; and
• a one-way opaque customer principal for up to 400 days for App Store verification and quota continuity.

Deletion removes data from active product systems. Copies may remain temporarily in provider-managed backups, security records, or logs until they expire under provider schedules. We do not promise immediate physical removal from every backup, and deleted content is not restored into the live product during ordinary recovery.

Rights and other details

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a portable copy of personal data, or to object to or restrict certain processing. We will not discriminate against you for making a privacy request. Curious does not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is no sale or targeted-advertising opt-out to apply.

Security and international processing

We use access controls, scoped credentials, encryption in transit, data minimization, and provider safeguards designed for a small service. No system is perfectly secure. FigLantern and its providers operate in the United States and may process data in other locations described in their policies.

Children

Curious is intended for people age 13 and older. It is not in Apple's Kids Category and is not intentionally designed or marketed to children under 13. The initial release does not perform verified age assurance. If you believe a child under 13 provided data, contact us so we can investigate and delete it.

Changes

We may update this policy when the app, providers, or law changes. The current version and effective date will remain at this URL. Material changes will be communicated in the app or by another appropriate method before they take effect when required.