Privacy Policy

Last updated 24 August 2026

Pulse has no account, no server, and no analytics. Your heartbeats are stored on your iPhone and travel only inside the message you choose to send. Nothing is transmitted to the developer, and there is nowhere else for it to go.

Who this covers

Pulse is an iPhone and Apple Watch app that records a short sample of a heartbeat and lets you send it in Messages, where the recipient can feel it as a haptic pattern. This policy covers the iPhone app, the Apple Watch app, and the Messages extension. It is published by James Ashcraft, the independent developer of Pulse.

What Pulse collects

When you make a recording, Pulse creates and stores the following:

• Heart rate — an average beats-per-minute figure and the timing of each individual beat over roughly six seconds.
• Heart rate variability — a single SDNN figure, used to shape how irregular the played-back rhythm feels.
• The date and time the recording was made.
• A name, only if you type one.

Pulse does not collect your name, email address, phone number, contacts, location, photo library, advertising identifier, or any device identifier. It contains no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, and no third-party software development kits of any kind. A single photograph you choose for an EKG import is handled as described under Photos of EKG printouts below — it is read on your iPhone and not kept.

How heart data is read

Heart rate is read on Apple Watch through Apple's HealthKit framework. Reading live heart rate on watchOS requires an active workout session, which is why Pulse asks for permission to save workouts. Pulse never writes a workout, or anything else, into Health. That permission is requested solely to open the sensor, and the app only ever reads.

Health data read by Pulse is never used for advertising, marketing, or any form of use-based data mining, and is never sold or shared with anyone.

Photos of EKG printouts

Pulse can read the beats from a photograph of a paper EKG strip. You can either choose an existing photo or take a new one. Choosing an existing photo goes through the standard iOS picker, which hands Pulse that single image and nothing else — the app is never given access to your photo library. Taking a new one uses the camera, which iOS asks your permission for separately, and only while that screen is open.

Whose EKG it is

Making sure you have the right to use a strip is your responsibility, not Pulse's. If an EKG belongs to someone else, it is up to you to have their permission, or the authority to act on their behalf, before importing it. Pulse cannot tell whose heart a strip came from, does not ask, and has no way to verify any of this.

Many people import a strip belonging to someone who has died, and are entitled to. Some are not. Pulse cannot know the difference, so the judgement is yours.

The image is analysed entirely on your iPhone and is not stored by Pulse and never uploaded anywhere. Only the timing of the beats is kept. Pulse does not reconstruct, save, or display the waveform itself, does not interpret the trace, and is not a medical tool.

Supporting Pulse

Pulse is free and stays free. If you choose to leave a tip, it is handled entirely by Apple's In-App Purchase system — the developer never sees your payment details, and the app records nothing beyond the fact that a tip was given, stored only on your own iPhone.

Where recordings are stored

Recordings are saved on your iPhone, in storage private to the app. They are included in your device backup, so restoring a backup restores your recordings.

iCloud. If you turn on "Keep a copy in iCloud", recordings are also written to your own private iCloud container so that a lost or replaced iPhone does not take them with it. This is your personal iCloud storage, governed by Apple's privacy policy. The developer has no access to it and no ability to read what is stored there. You can turn this off at any time in the app under Past recordings → Storage.

What happens when you send a heartbeat

Sending is always an action you take deliberately. The recording — the beat timings, the average rate, the variability figure, the timestamp, and the name if you gave it one — is encoded into the message itself and delivered by Apple's Messages service to the person you chose. It does not pass through any server belonging to the developer, because none exists.

Once delivered, a copy is saved on the recipient's device so they can feel it again later. Messages you send are subject to Apple's handling of iMessage, and to whatever the recipient chooses to do with them.

Keeping and deleting

Recordings stay on your device until you delete them. Deleting moves a recording to Recently Deleted, where it can be restored for 30 days before being removed permanently. Deleting the app removes everything stored on the device; if you enabled iCloud, remove the Pulse data from iCloud in iOS Settings as well.

You can withdraw health access at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Health → Pulse, or in the Health app. Because the developer never receives your data, there is nothing held elsewhere for you to request or have erased.

Children

Pulse is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted on this page with a new date above. Material changes affecting how your information is handled will also be noted in the app's release notes.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about privacy in Pulse: nashcraft1@gmail.com