THE RING: Drink Tracker

by Area13 Studio

THE RING: Drink Tracker — Privacy Policy

Effective: 21 October 2026
Publisher brand: Area13 Studio
Privacy contact: hello@area13.studio

Data controller

THE RING's data controller is IREM YILDIRIM, an individual established in Türkiye operating under the Area13 Studio brand. Privacy contact: hello@area13.studio.

1. About this policy

THE RING helps you record 17 drink categories on iPhone: Water, Coffee, Tea, Green Tea, Matcha, Juice, Sparkling Water, Soft Drinks, Beer, Milk, Red Wine, White Wine, Rosé Wine, Energy Drinks, Cocktail, Protein Shake and Smoothie. Your Water goal, Fluid Ring, pacing and reminders use Water records only. iPhone widgets, the Apple Watch app and its complication also focus on Water. Other categories remain part of All Drinks; this is how the app organizes its totals, not a statement about their hydration effects.

This policy explains how the app handles your records and what happens when you contact support or visit Area13 Studio’s website. The app is completely free, without advertisements, an account or a subscription. Area13 Studio is the public-facing publisher brand of an individual established in Türkiye; it is not presented as a separate incorporated company. Privacy and support contact: hello@area13.studio.

2. Information saved on your devices

THE RING stores:

  • Drink type, amount, date and time, a record identifier, and how you added the entry—for example, through the app, widget, Watch or a reminder action.
  • Your Water goal, bottle size, four quick actions, six configurable favorite drinks and amounts, selected app language, daily pacing window and reminder preferences.
  • Optional preparation details for supported drinks: milk choice, sugar amount and caffeine description or user-entered milligrams. These are saved details, not calorie calculations, measured caffeine or automatic caffeine totals.
  • Setup completion and whether you have dismissed the explanation of Water and All Drinks. Preference-update times help keep settings consistent between paired devices.

Totals, History and pacing are calculated on your devices. Amounts are saved in milliliters and may be displayed in milliliters or liters. You do not need to provide a name, email or account profile to log drinks.

3. Widgets and your paired Apple Watch

The iPhone app and its widgets share local storage using Apple’s App Groups feature. This lets widgets show Water progress and save Water entries.

The Watch keeps its own local records. Apple’s WatchConnectivity service shares drink records, settings and deletion identifiers between your paired devices. Shared records include all supported drink categories and optional preparation details, even though the Watch interface focuses on Water. Transfers can be delayed when a device, connection or opportunity to run the app is unavailable.

The complication uses a saved copy on the Watch to show Water progress. That copy also contains drink records and preferences. Temporary local files may be used for larger transfers. These copies are separate from the phone’s storage and do not use a developer-hosted THE RING history database.

4. Optional reminders

Reminders are off by default. If you enable them, the app requests notification permission when needed. You can decline permission and keep logging, change reminders in the app, or change notification permission in iPhone Settings.

Regular reminders repeat locally each day at your chosen eligible clock times. They can still arrive after your Water goal is reached or after a recent sip; they do not evaluate changing intake at delivery while the app is suspended. Smart reminders use saved Water records and preferences to plan today and the next two local calendar days. Extending that Smart plan requires a later successful refresh when the app or a supported action can run. Opening the app or successfully logging through a widget or notification action can provide that opportunity; arriving Watch changes also depend on available phone execution. Merely viewing a widget or receiving an alert does not extend the Smart plan. Existing users are not automatically switched between modes.

Apple’s operating system controls delivery and background activity. Reminders can be delayed, absent or based on records that have not yet synchronized. They are not continuous background monitoring or a remote push service.

5. Developer access and Apple services

THE RING does not automatically send your drink history or preparation details to an Area13 Studio server. It has no developer-hosted backend, advertisements, advertising tracking, automatic developer analytics or third-party analytics/crash-reporting SDK. It does not use a developer cloud account to store or recover your history.

Apple services support widgets, notifications and paired-device communication. Your device or Apple backup settings may copy or restore app data. System logs can contain app errors; Apple’s diagnostic services may process crash information under their own terms and your settings. If you use TestFlight, Apple’s beta services can also provide crash information and feedback you choose to send to the developer. These are separate from an automatic THE RING drink-history upload.

Local storage therefore does not mean that information can never leave a device. Device transfers, backups, website visits and support messages have different processing paths.

6. Support messages, the website and service providers

If you contact us, you choose what to send. Messages may include your email address, device/app details and attachments. Screenshots can reveal drink history or times. Share only what is needed; do not send passwords or unnecessary medical information. The app does not automatically upload support files.

The public privacy and support contact is hello@area13.studio. Incoming mail is forwarded through ImprovMX to an owner-managed Gmail mailbox. Replies currently come from that Gmail address, rather than the studio-domain alias. The owner manages this correspondence. These pages use email links, without a website contact form or account registration. The confirmed mail route does not depend on a future provider migration.

Area13 Studio’s website is hosted on Vercel. Hosting can involve technical request information, such as IP addresses, to deliver and protect the website. Vercel Web Analytics measures website visits, page views and general traffic patterns, including aggregated location, device, browser and referral information. The website also measures Nomi App Store and Chromora Chrome Web Store link clicks; those events are not purchases. This is website analytics and does not access THE RING’s local drink records. See the website privacy notice and Vercel Web Analytics privacy information.

ImprovMX processes forwarding/delivery information and describes itself as a processor for its customers. Its published infrastructure description places inbound receipt and transient storage in France, with delivery infrastructure in France and the United States. This is a provider-wide description, not a verified country restriction for our account. Account records show an active Free plan, account-level Standard log detail and seven-day log retention. A domain-specific log-detail override was not verified in this review. Its log-configuration guide explains that Full detail can store undelivered messages; we do not claim that message content is never stored under any configuration.

Google provides the Gmail inbox and reply service under its Privacy Policy and retention information. Google states that it does not act as a data processor or offer a data-processing agreement for consumer Gmail. A Google Workspace agreement does not apply merely because we use Gmail for support. Providers may process information for service operation, security and legal obligations under their terms. Our correspondence schedule in section 7 does not override those provider-controlled processes.

International processing is relevant: ImprovMX’s privacy notice describes processing outside the user’s jurisdiction, including the United States and Europe; Google describes worldwide server operations; Vercel’s Data Processing Addendum describes US and other processing locations and jurisdiction-specific transfer terms. The active Vercel Pro account and its Terms of Service support incorporation of Vercel’s DPA into that service agreement; a separate signature is not its only route to becoming binding. Under that DPA, Vercel acts as a processor for covered Customer Data and as a controller for Contact Data and personal Service-Generated Data. This alone does not establish a KVKK Article 9 safeguard for every transfer from Türkiye or an agreement with another provider. A completed ImprovMX data-processing agreement record was not verified; that does not mean no agreement exists. Gmail is the consumer service; a Google Workspace agreement is not assumed.

An applicable KVKK Article 9 arrangement covering the ongoing international transfers through these services has not been verified. The related contractual and legal work remains outstanding. This notice describes the data practices above; it does not claim that unsigned agreements have been executed or that international-transfer compliance has been established.

7. Retention, Undo and deletion

Local records and preferences remain until changed or removed using supported app or device controls; there is no automatic history expiry in the current store. History supports amount correction, individual deletion and confirmed deletion of selected records. An amount correction replaces the record identity while retaining its original time, drink type, source and preparation details; the original identity is retained as deleted. Water Undo removes today’s latest eligible Water record. All Drinks Undo removes today’s latest eligible record of any supported type.

Undo and History deletion keep a deletion identifier so a delayed synchronized copy does not restore the removed record. These identifiers currently have no automatic expiry. Removing a visible entry does not permanently erase every trace of it. In Settings → Data Management, Delete All History shows the full stored record count and requires a separate confirmation. It removes the confirmed drink records while keeping settings and favorites. Cancel does not delete history. If records change before the operation commits, review and confirm the updated history.

If an installed Watch companion is paired, the app first needs the updated Watch app open and reachable so its complete history can be included. An offline, outdated or unverified companion blocks the complete-deletion flow before the phone deletes records. If the connection fails after the phone saves deletion, the app shows pending Watch synchronization and retains a small operation identifier and targeted deletion identifiers until the Watch store and complication cache acknowledge it. Reconnect/open both apps and retry Watch sync. New records logged after the confirmed boundary are kept. A cache acknowledgement does not guarantee the watch face has already refreshed.

This is history deletion, not a reset of all app/device information. It does not erase Apple/device backups, saved preferences or deletion identifiers. Those identifiers help stop delayed copies from restoring removed records.

Removing an app may remove local records, but copies may remain on a paired device, in a shared cache, in a pending transfer or in a backup. Manage those copies separately. Reinstalling or restoring a backup is not a guaranteed recovery method. We have no developer-hosted drink-history account to retrieve or erase for you.

Support correspondence retention

The owner has adopted this manual procedure prospectively from the first publication of THE RING Support pages. It is not an automated deletion system or a claim of historical operation. Existing correspondence will be included in the first monthly review after publication:

  • Ordinary support messages: schedule deletion six months after the issue is closed. A monthly review will remove due correspondence within a further 30 days, including relevant sent copies.
  • Screenshots or sensitive attachments no longer needed for support: remove the message copies containing them promptly once they are no longer needed, with a target of within 30 days, retaining only a necessary non-sensitive case summary where appropriate.
  • Minimal privacy-request completion record: retain for 12 months after completion, then remove at the next monthly review within a further 30 days. Keep only the case reference, dates, request type, necessary verification/action record and outcome; do not keep full identity documents or the full correspondence merely as routine evidence.
  • If a specific legal duty, active dispute or necessary security investigation requires longer retention, document the reason and review date, restrict the retained material to what is needed, and review it monthly. No indefinite blanket exception applies.

These periods concern correspondence controlled by Area13 Studio, not your app history or every provider log. Gmail moves deleted messages to Trash and normally removes them after 30 days; Trash can be emptied sooner. The monthly cleanup described above will empty due messages from Trash as well. Google explains that system and backup deletion can take longer. Forwarding logs, provider security/legal records and backups have separate provider-controlled limits; we cannot promise immediate removal of every copy. We will not create extra exports or backups of support mail as part of this procedure.

8. Your choices and privacy requests

You choose what to log, your goal and reminder settings, whether to permit notifications, whether to use the Watch companion, and what to send to support. Paired synchronization is part of the Watch experience; there is no separate sync switch. You can choose among 18 app languages through the native in-app language picker, including the automatic system-language choice. Device settings control regional formatting and system backups.

THE RING is intended for general users, primarily adults, and is not specifically designed for children. The planned release is worldwide, subject to applicable regional and trader requirements. This does not establish an age rating or an exemption from applicable privacy obligations.

For privacy questions or requests concerning information provided to Area13 Studio, contact hello@area13.studio. There is no developer-hosted drink-history database for us to access or erase on your behalf; app-history controls and their limitations are described in section 7.

Privacy requests and handling procedure

Under the manual procedure adopted from the first publication of THE RING Support pages, the owner will monitor the support mailbox on business days, record the received date and scope, and aim to acknowledge a request within three business days using the current Gmail reply service. Acknowledgement is not the completion of the request.

  1. Send a request to hello@area13.studio describing the information or correspondence concerned and the action requested. A subject/date or case reference can help locate it. Do not send passwords or unnecessary medical information.
  2. We will assess the applicable law, requested action and response deadline from receipt. We will request clarification only where needed and keep verification proportionate. Existing correspondence or control of the relevant email address will be used where sufficient. Additional proof will be sought only when reasonably necessary or legally required, through an appropriate channel; identity documents will not be routinely collected.
  3. We will search the relevant inbox, sent mail, Trash and actual known copies, and assess access, correction or deletion requests against applicable rights and necessary exceptions. We will use provider controls or contact providers where needed. We cannot access device-only drink history or guarantee removal from every backup.
  4. We aim to give a substantive response within 30 calendar days or any earlier legally required deadline. Where GDPR applies, its one-calendar-month deadline governs; where Turkish KVKK applies, its applicable request formalities and 30-day limit govern. We will explain any lawful extension, refusal or exception under the applicable rules, rather than treat it as an automatic delay.
  5. We will explain the action taken, remaining copies/limitations and applicable complaint route. We will delete unnecessary correspondence according to section 7, keep only the minimal completion record described there, and track a review/deletion date without copying unnecessary sensitive material.

Depending on applicable law, you may have rights of access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection or portability, and withdrawal of consent where processing relies on consent. These rights have conditions and exceptions. Where GDPR applies, you may complain to the competent supervisory authority, including where you habitually live, work or consider the infringement occurred; European supervisory authorities are listed here. Where Turkish KVKK applies, its controller-application and complaint procedures apply. Other competent authorities and procedures depend on your jurisdiction. You can use the public contact to ask about the applicable route.

9. Security

The app uses operating-system storage protections and safeguards for reliable local writes. Protect access to your devices and any backup or email accounts you use. No storage or communication method is risk-free; we do not promise absolute security or independently verified end-to-end encryption.

10. Updates and contact

We will update this policy when relevant product or support/website practices change and show the effective date of the published version.

Privacy contact: hello@area13.studio
Help with the app: THE RING Help & Support
Official website: Area13 Studio