Streams in the Desert Devo

Privacy Policy

Effective: September 19, 2026
Last updated: September 30, 2026

Your reading and your questions are yours. The app has no accounts and no advertising, and nothing you type, read, star or highlight is ever sent to us. It reports anonymous usage events — which parts of the app get used, never what you asked — and nothing else.

This policy explains how the iOS app Streams in the Desert Devo (“the app”) handles information. On your Home Screen it appears as Streams, which is also the name iOS uses for it in Settings. The book it contains is Streams in the Desert, and that is the name used below wherever the text itself is meant. The app is published by 43rd Element, LLC (“we”, “us”).

What the app stores, and where

The app keeps a small amount of information so that it can do its job across launches:

• Entries you star — which readings you saved, and when.
• Passages you highlight — the sentence you kept, which entry it came from, and when.
• Questions you have asked — the words you typed into Explore, and when.
• App settings — such as whether you have seen the first-run screens.
• Your trial — the date you first opened the app, which is what the free window of thirteen days is measured from, and the free questions you have used, each kept as the text of the question so that asking one of them again costs you nothing.

All of this is stored on your device, and, if you are signed in to iCloud, in your own iCloud account as described below. None of it is sent to us. We operate no server that receives it, and we have no way to read it. The anonymous usage events described further down carry none of it.

iCloud sync

If you are signed in to iCloud on your device, the app uses two of Apple’s iCloud services, and nothing else. Together with the anonymous usage events described below, they are the whole of the app’s network activity.

• The CloudKit private database carries your library — stars, highlights and the questions you have asked — so that a star made on your iPhone appears on your iPad.
• iCloud key-value storage carries your trial: the date you first opened the app, and the free questions you have already used. This is what makes the trial belong to you rather than to each device separately — without it, a reader with an iPhone and an iPad would get two trials, which is neither what we offer nor what anyone asked for.

You can turn this off at any time on your device: Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Saved to iCloud, and switching Streams off. With sync off, the app continues to work; your stars, highlights and questions simply stay on that one device, and your trial is counted on that device alone.

Apple’s handling of iCloud data is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.

Search happens on your device

When you ask a question in Explore, the app searches a copy of Streams in the Desert that is bundled inside the app itself, using a search model that also runs on your device. Your question is never transmitted anywhere. There is no search server, no API call, and no third-party language model involved. If your device is in airplane mode, search works exactly as it always does.

Your questions are kept — on your device, and in your own iCloud as described above — so that the app can offer them back to you and so that asking one again does not cost you a free question. That is the whole of it.

Anonymous usage analytics

The app reports a small amount of anonymous usage data to TelemetryDeck, a privacy-preserving analytics service, so that we can see in aggregate whether the app is used for asking at all. What is sent:

• One event. That someone asked a question. Not which question, not what the app found, not what was read afterwards — the fact that an ask happened, and nothing else. It is the only event the app reports, and if that ever changes this page changes with it.
• An anonymous install identifier — a random value generated on your device the first time you open the app, which TelemetryDeck salts and hashes before it is transmitted. It is not your name, your email, your Apple Account or the advertising identifier. It exists only so that counts mean something, it cannot be used to identify you, and deleting the app discards it.
• Basic technical context attached automatically by the analytics SDK: app version and build, device model, iOS version, language and region.

TelemetryDeck processes this data under its own privacy policy. It is not sold, not shared with data brokers or ad networks, and not used to build a profile of you.

Purchases

The full version is a one-time purchase, handled entirely by Apple through the App Store using your Apple Account. We never see your payment details, card number, billing address or Apple Account. The app asks Apple a single question — whether this Apple Account has bought the full version — and receives yes or no. Nothing else.

Purchases are subject to the Apple Standard End User License Agreement and Apple’s media services terms.

What the app does not do

• It has no user accounts and asks for no email address, name or password.
• It shows no advertising and contains no ad networks or tracking pixels.
• It does not track you across apps or websites, and requests no tracking permission.
• It does not access your location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone, calendar, or health data.
• It sends you no push notifications. (The app does use Apple’s silent background notifications — this is how iCloud tells the app that a star made elsewhere has arrived. Nothing is ever displayed, and no notification content leaves or enters your Apple ecosystem.)
• It sells nothing, and shares nothing with anyone beyond the anonymous usage events described above.

Accordingly, the app’s App Store privacy label reports usage data that is not linked to your identity, and nothing else.

Information Apple may give us

Independently of the app, Apple provides developers with aggregated App Store statistics — downloads, crash counts, territory-level figures — and, if you have chosen to share analytics with developers in Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements, anonymised crash logs. This data comes from Apple, not from anything the app does, it is not personally identifying, and we cannot connect it to you or to anything you have read, saved or asked. You control it entirely through that iOS setting.

Children

The app is suitable for all ages and collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13. The anonymous usage events it reports contain no personal information and are not linked to any identity, so there is nothing that could be collected from a child.

Deleting your data

Deleting the app removes everything it stored on that device. To remove the synced copy from iCloud as well, use Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Manage Account Storage → Streams → Delete Data on any device signed in to your Apple Account. Because we hold no copy of your data, there is no deletion request to send us — and no request we could usefully act on.

Your rights

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you rights to access, correct, export and delete the personal data a company holds about you. We hold none. The usage events described above are anonymous and are not linked to your identity, so there is no personal data of yours for us to produce, correct or erase. We sell no personal information and share none with third parties. Data stored on your device or in your own iCloud account is under your direct control, as described above.

About the text

The readings in the app are from Streams in the Desert, compiled by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman and first published in 1925, and the scripture from the King James Version. Both are in the public domain.

The book is a compilation: Cowman gathered it from many writers — F. B. Meyer, Andrew Murray, A. B. Simpson, Annie Johnson Flint and others — and where the book names the source of something it quotes, that name is part of the text and ships with it. Where it does not, the app says nothing rather than guessing. The app’s own writing — its labels, notes and screens — is ours, and is always visually distinguished from the book’s prose so that you can tell at a glance who is speaking.

Two details of the edition, because a reader is owed them. The text is taken from the 1947 printing, whose only copyright notice is the 1925 one, and it is shown as that printing has it, apart from a small number of obvious misprints, each corrected and recorded. And the book sometimes cites a translation other than the King James — the Revised Version, Weymouth, the Prayer Book version — while the app bundles the King James alone; in those readings the verse you tap opens in the King James, beside a citation naming the other.

This website

Everything above describes the app. This website (www.43rdelement.com), including the page you are reading, uses Umami, a privacy-focused analytics service, to count page views in aggregate: which pages are visited, the referring website, and general browser, device and country information. Umami uses no cookies, collects no personal information and does not track you across other websites. Nothing it records is sold or used for advertising.

Changes to this policy

If the app ever changes in a way that affects this policy, we will update this page and change the “Last updated” date above. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes on the App Store. Continuing to use the app after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about privacy in the app:
support@43rdelement.com