Map Star privacy policy

Last updated: 10 September 2026

Map Star does not collect any data about you or your child.

There is no account to create, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, and no crash reporting. The app makes no network connections of any kind.

Your child's voice

Map Star asks questions out loud, and children answer by speaking. To make that work, the app asks for access to the microphone and to speech recognition.

The microphone is on only while the app is listening for an answer. The sound is turned into text on the device, used to check the answer, and then discarded. No audio is recorded or saved, and what your child says is never stored.

Map Star requires speech recognition to happen entirely on the device. It turns on Apple's setting that forbids sending audio off the device, and it has no fallback to online recognition. If a device can't recognize speech offline, the app doesn't offer the microphone at all, and your child can type answers instead.

About Apple's permission message

The first time Map Star asks to use speech recognition, iOS shows a standard message saying that speech data is sent to Apple. That wording is written by Apple, appears the same for every app, and can't be changed by app developers. It describes online recognition, which Map Star never uses.

Map Star's own explanation appears beneath Apple's text in the same message: “Your answer is turned into text on this device so the quiz can check it. This app never sends what you say to a server.”

Reading questions aloud

Questions and corrections are spoken by the voice built into iOS, on the device. Reading aloud can be switched off with “Read the question out loud” on the app's main screen.

Progress stored on the device

To track learning, Map Star keeps a small record on the device: which states were answered correctly or incorrectly in each kind of quiz, and when; the best score for each quiz; and the app's settings. Map Star never sends this record anywhere. Like other app data, it is included in your own iCloud or computer backup if you use one.

“Start over” on the Progress screen erases the progress record. Deleting the app removes everything Map Star has stored.

Children

Map Star is made for children. Because it collects no personal information whatsoever, it does not gather data from children or anyone else. The app contains no advertising, no links that leave the app, and no in-app purchases.

Third parties

Map Star contains no third-party software development kits, trackers, or advertising libraries. No data is shared with anyone, because none is collected.

Changes to this policy

If this policy ever changes, the updated version will be posted at this address with a new date. Any future version of the app that collects data would say so plainly here before it shipped.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email justin@physicsway.com.