Privacy
Bimble is a companion that lives on your Apple Watch. There's no account and no sign-in, no ads, and I never sell, rent or share your data for advertising or tracking. This page says what leaves your watch, who handles it, how long it's kept and how to delete it. The beta sign-up on this website is at the bottom.
What stays on your watch
Your companion, its home, your things, your photos, what it remembers about you and your settings all live on your watch. If you use iCloud, a backup goes to your own iCloud (Apple's private CloudKit database). I can't read it.
Apple Health
With your permission Bimble reads your steps (they become coins), sleep, workouts and active energy. It never writes to Health.
Health data stays on your watch, except when your companion talks about your day: then the moment it's given can mention something like today's step count or last night's sleep (see the next part). Health data is never used for advertising, never sold, and never used for anything but your companion's lines.
Talking with your companion
- Typing and dictation. You talk to it with the watch keyboard, which includes Apple's dictation, under Apple's privacy policy.
- Its replies are written by Apple Intelligence on Private Cloud Compute, Apple's own servers, which don't keep your request. First the watch sends Bimble's server the moment: your companion's name and yours, what you said, the time of day, the weather in your town and any Health mention. The server turns that into instructions for Apple's model and sends them straight back. Its logs keep only the size and timing of a request, never the words.
The two voice games
The microphone is only used in two games, and each says so the first time you open it.
- The Big Pitch records your talk. The recording goes to a speech-to-text service (Groq's Whisper, with Cloudflare Workers AI as the backup) and comes back as text, which Apple's model grades.
- The Scoop turns your questions into text the same way. The guest you interview is played by an AI service (Cerebras, and Google's Gemini for the printed story), which sees your questions and the guest's story.
Bimble doesn't keep the recordings. The speech and AI services handle requests under their own terms for API customers.
Weather
To show the weather where you are, the watch asks Open-Meteo for the forecast for the town you gave Bimble. It sends the town, never your name.
Usage counts and crash reports
- Usage counts: how often things happen (the app opened, a game played, a thing bought), sent as numbers. Never words, places, names, steps or anything from Health.
- Crash and hang reports: if Bimble crashes or freezes, the next time it opens it sends what kind of problem it was and where in Bimble's own code it happened. No words.
- Turn off Share usage stats in Bimble's Settings and both stop, and what your watch already sent is deleted.
How your watch is recognised
Each install makes a random install pass the first time it connects, checked by Apple's App Attest so only real copies of the app get one. It isn't linked to your name, Apple Account or email. It's used to keep the service fair and within budget, and the network address you connect from is kept only as a one-day hash.
Who handles your data
- Apple: your companion's replies (Private Cloud Compute), dictation, your iCloud backup, App Attest.
- Cloudflare: the front door every request goes through; usage counts, crash reports and install passes.
- Google Cloud (Sydney): Bimble's server, which builds the instructions and serves the art.
- Groq and Cloudflare Workers AI: speech to text, in the two voice games only.
- Cerebras and Google Gemini: the Scoop's guest and its story.
- Open-Meteo: the forecast for your town.
How long it's kept
- Server logs: 30 days, sizes and timings only.
- Usage counts and crash reports: 35 days per install, then only totals with no install attached.
- Install passes: a one-way hash, until revoked.
- Your iCloud backup: until you delete it.
Deleting your data
- On the watch: delete the Bimble app and everything on the watch goes with it. You can also swipe away anything your companion remembers about you.
- Your iCloud backup: on your iPhone, Settings, your name, iCloud, Manage Account Storage, Bimble, Delete.
- Usage counts and crash reports: turn off Share usage stats in Bimble's Settings.
- Anything else: email me and I'll delete it within 30 days.
Children
Bimble is designed for ages 18 and up, because your companion is powered by AI models.
Changes
If this changes, the new version goes here with its date, and anything that changes what leaves your watch is also said in the app.
This website
When you join the beta list I save the name you give, your email address, when you signed up, your browser's user agent (which browser and device it is) and the country Cloudflare sees your connection coming from. It's used to email you about the beta and to get a rough sense of where people are. I don't sell it, share it or sign you up to anything else.
It lives in a Cloudflare D1 database only I can get to. The form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to check you're a person, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. There are no analytics, ad pixels or tracking cookies here, and the fonts, pictures and videos are all served from this site.
To get off the list, reply to any email from me or write to me, and I'll delete your details.
Contact
Bimble is made in Sydney by Jonathon Lau. Questions: joncolours@gmail.com.