The deal, in plain words.

Who provides Stepling

Stepling is developed and published by Fortivus, in the Netherlands (“we”, “us”). You can reach a human at [email protected].

Your licence to use the app

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use Stepling on Apple devices that you own or control, for as long as you follow these terms. The app itself, its design, its name and the duckling stay ours.

You may not copy, sell, rent or sublicense the app, or attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile or modify it, except where the law explicitly allows it regardless of what a licence says.

Stepling is distributed through the App Store, so Apple's standard Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement applies alongside these terms. Where the two genuinely conflict, Apple's terms win for anything concerning the App Store itself.

Stepling Pro and payment

Stepling is free to download and use. Stepling Pro is a single, one-time in-app purchase. Apple sets the price in your currency and always shows it to you before you confirm. There is no subscription and no recurring charge of any kind.

Apple handles the payment. It is charged to your Apple Account, and your payment details never reach us. Pro unlocks on any device signed in to that Apple Account; “Restore purchases” in Settings brings it back after a reinstall or on a new phone.

Because Apple is the merchant, refunds are Apple's to give. Request one through reportaproblem.apple.com. We can't issue or reverse a payment ourselves, though we would rather hear from you first: most refund requests are a bug we can fix.

“Forever” means what it says: the purchase is not time-limited, and it covers what it unlocked at the time of purchase plus whatever we add to it afterwards. It is not a promise that the app will be published or updated indefinitely. No one can honestly promise that.

Stepling is not a medical device

Stepling is a fitness and wellbeing app. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose, treat or prevent anything, and nothing it shows you is medical advice.

The numbers come from Apple Health, which gets them from your iPhone's motion sensor and any Apple Watch you wear. They are estimates, and they can be wrong: a pushed shopping trolley, a bumpy car ride or a phone left on a desk all change the count. Do not make medical decisions based on them, and talk to a doctor before significantly changing how active you are.

Your data

Your health data stays on your phone. What is read, what is not, and the little that is counted anonymously are all set out in the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.

Availability, updates and changes

We may add, change or remove features as the app develops, and iOS changes can break things we did not touch. Widget refresh timing in particular is decided by iOS, not by us. Stepling asks to be refreshed and iOS decides when to allow it, so no particular update frequency is promised.

There is no server behind Stepling, so there is nothing for us to take offline. The App Store, Apple Health, Apple's payment systems and widget scheduling are Apple's, and their availability is not something we control.

Acceptable use

Use Stepling for your own step tracking. Do not use it to break the law, and do not try to interfere with the app's operation on other people's devices. That is genuinely the whole list.

Liability

Stepling is provided “as is”. To the extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss: lost data, lost time, a missed goal, or anything you decided on the strength of a step count.

Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to the amount you paid for the app in the twelve months before the claim.

Nothing here removes rights you have as a consumer that cannot be waived, including your statutory rights under Dutch and EU consumer law, and equivalent mandatory protections in your own country. If a clause in these terms conflicts with one of those rights, that right wins and the rest of these terms carry on unaffected.

Apple's position

Apple is not a party to these terms and has no responsibility for Stepling or its support. Any support question goes to [email protected], not to Apple. Any claim that the app is defective, infringes someone's intellectual property, or fails to meet a legal requirement is ours to answer, not Apple's. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Changes to these terms

If these terms change, the new version is posted here and the date at the top moves. Continuing to use Stepling after that means the new version applies. Material changes will also be mentioned in the app's release notes.

Governing law

Dutch law governs these terms, and the Dutch courts are competent to hear disputes about them. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the EU, this does not deprive you of the protection of your own country's mandatory consumer law, or of your right to bring a case where you live.

Contact

Questions, bug reports and complaints all go to the same place: [email protected]. A real person reads it.