Afterglow Terms of Use
These terms are an agreement between you and Gabriel Pires ("we", "us") about using Afterglow, the journalling app for iPhone and iPad, and the server we run so its optional AI features can work. By using Afterglow you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the app.
Afterglow is licensed, not sold, under Apple's Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement, which covers the licence to the software itself. These terms sit alongside it and cover the things it doesn't: the AI features, what we promise about the service, and what we don't. Where the two conflict on the licence to the app, Apple's agreement governs.
In short
- Your journal is yours. We claim no rights over anything you write, and we hold no copy of it.
- The AI can be wrong. It can misread you and it can state things that were never in your journal. None of it is advice of any kind.
- It is not a therapist, a doctor or a crisis service, and must not be used as one.
- Apple handles all billing. Subscriptions are bought, renewed, cancelled and refunded through your Apple Account, not through us.
1. Using Afterglow
You need a compatible Apple device and a recent version of iOS or iPadOS. There are no Afterglow accounts and no sign-in. You must be old enough to agree to these terms where you live, and at least 13 either way.
You are responsible for your device, your Apple Account and your iCloud settings, and for keeping your device secure. Anyone who can unlock your device can read your journal.
2. Your journal is yours
Everything you write, photograph or record in Afterglow stays yours. We claim no ownership of it and no licence to use it, display it, train anything on it, or do anything else with it.
Your journal is stored on your device and, if you use iCloud, in your own private iCloud account. We cannot read it and we hold no copy. That also means we cannot recover it for you. If a device is lost or a journal deleted, the only copy is the one in your iCloud, or a backup you exported yourself. Export one from Settings if that matters to you.
When you use an AI feature, what that feature needs is sent to our server and on to OpenAI, processed, and returned. Our server does not store it. What each feature sends is listed in the app under Settings, AI, What gets sent, and in the privacy policy.
3. The AI features, and their limits
Ask, Talk, Ramble, automatic titles and tags, writing prompts, photo descriptions and the mood reflection are optional. They are off until you turn them on and can be turned off again at any time in Settings. Entries carrying a private tag, or mentioning one, are never sent.
Output from these features can be inaccurate. The model can misread what you meant, state things with more confidence than it has earned, and include details that were never in your journal at all. It can be confidently wrong about your own life, which is the hardest kind of mistake to notice, because it is quoting you back at yourself.
So: what you wrote is the record, and the AI's account of it is not. Do not rely on anything it writes as a factual record of your own life, of other people, of dates, or of events. Check anything that matters against the entry it came from. Tags it suggests can be corrected or removed, and corrections stick.
You are responsible for anything you do on the strength of what the AI tells you. We do not guarantee that any output is accurate, complete, useful, or suitable for any purpose.
4. Not advice, and not a crisis service
Afterglow is a journal. Nothing it produces is professional advice of any kind — not medical, psychological, legal, financial, or any other. It is not a doctor, a therapist, a counsellor, a lawyer or a financial adviser, and using it is not a substitute for seeing one.
Afterglow is not a crisis service and nobody is monitoring what you write. No part of it is watched by a person, and nothing you write will summon help. If you are in danger, in crisis, or thinking of hurting yourself, contact your local emergency number or a crisis line. In the United States, call or text 988. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists services by country.
5. Fair use of the service
Our server exists so the app's AI features can work, and it is small. Please don't:
- use it other than through the Afterglow app on a genuine Apple device;
- work around the device checks, usage limits or membership checks, or try to;
- use it as a general relay to a model, or resell access to it;
- send content that is unlawful, or that infringes somebody else's rights;
- attempt to extract, disrupt, overload or reverse engineer the service, or probe it for weaknesses;
- use it to generate content intended to harm, harass, deceive or impersonate anyone.
Usage limits apply per device and across all users, and they change as costs do. We may suspend or refuse service to a device that breaks these rules or that is costing far more than ordinary use. Your journal is unaffected either way: it is on your device, not ours.
Finding a security problem and telling us about it is welcome and is not a breach of these terms. Write to the address at the bottom.
6. Membership and payment
Writing, photographs, boards, the calendar, search and your own tags are free and stay free. A membership pays for the parts that answer you.
| Afterglow Monthly | $19.99 a month, after a 7-day free trial |
|---|---|
| Afterglow Yearly | $200 a year, after a 7-day free trial |
Prices are in US dollars and differ by region; the App Store shows your own price before you confirm. A subscription renews automatically until you cancel, and a free trial becomes a paid period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. Any unused part of a trial is forfeited when you buy a subscription.
Apple handles all payment. We never see your card or payment details. Buying, renewing, cancelling, changing plan and refunds all happen through your Apple Account:
- Cancel or change: iOS Settings, your name, Subscriptions, Afterglow. Cancelling leaves the membership running to the end of the period you have paid for.
- Refunds: reportaproblem.apple.com. Refunds are Apple's decision under their terms, not ours.
- Restore on a new device: Settings, Membership, Restore.
If a membership ends, lapses or is refunded, the paid features stop. Everything you have written stays exactly where it is — nothing is deleted, locked or taken away, and the free parts of the app go on working.
Prices may change. A change never affects a period you have already paid for, and Apple asks you to agree before any increase takes effect on a renewal.
7. Availability and changes
Afterglow is made and run by one person. We will try to keep the service up, but we do not promise any level of availability, and the AI features depend on OpenAI and on our hosting provider, neither of which we control.
Features may be added, changed or withdrawn, and usage limits may move. If a change meaningfully reduces what a paid membership gets you, we will say so in the app before it takes effect. Nothing we change will take your journal away from you: it is on your device, and you can export it at any time.
8. Disclaimers
To the fullest extent the law allows, Afterglow and its server are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, error free, or that any output is accurate.
Nothing here excludes or limits anything that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited — including, where they apply to you, your statutory rights as a consumer, and liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
9. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost profits, or lost opportunity, arising out of your use of Afterglow — including anything arising from reliance on AI output.
To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim relating to Afterglow is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for it in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty US dollars.
Some places do not allow some of these exclusions, in which case they do not apply to you and the rest still stands. Section 8's second paragraph applies here too.
10. Ending this agreement
You can end it at any time by deleting the app. Cancel any subscription separately through your Apple Account, since deleting the app does not cancel it. We may suspend access to the server for a device that breaks section 5. Sections 2, 8, 9 and 12 survive.
11. Changes to these terms
If these terms change, we will update this page and its effective date. Continuing to use Afterglow after a change means you accept it. If a change meaningfully affects your rights, the app will tell you.
12. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict of law rules. The state and federal courts located in California have jurisdiction over any dispute, except that either of us may bring a claim in small claims court.
If you are a consumer, none of this deprives you of the protection of the mandatory laws of the country or state you live in, and you may bring proceedings there.
13. Contact
Questions about these terms, or anything else: so.strange.apps@gmail.com. There is a person at the other end.