Most apps say "we take your privacy seriously." Here's what Kodama says instead: we never receive your words, so there is nothing for us to take seriously.
That's not a promise about our behavior. It's a fact about the architecture, and facts are better than promises, so let me show you the architecture.
When you give Kodama your word for the day, it's written into a small database that lives inside the app, on your phone, protected the way Apple protects everything on your device. The sentiment reading — whether your word was a bright one or a heavy one, which decides how your tree grows — happens on the phone, against a built-in word list. Nothing is looked up. Nothing is sent.
There is no account, because accounts exist to connect your data to a server, and there is no server for your words to go to. There are no analytics in the app — I genuinely cannot tell you how many people wrote something today, and I've decided I'd rather not know than build the machinery that could. There are no ads, because ads are a data business wearing a costume.
One thing does phone home, and you deserve to know exactly what: if the app crashes, an anonymous crash report goes out so I can fix it — stack trace only, scrubbed of anything you typed, no identity attached. That's the entire list of things that ever leave.
If you want your words out of Kodama, there's an export button that hands you everything as a file — they're yours. If you delete the app, the words go with it. That's not a bug; that's what "on your phone" means, and it's also why the export button exists.
Two honest caveats, because privacy writing without caveats is marketing:
First, your words are as safe as your phone. Use the app lock (Face ID) if people borrow your device. Your iPhone backup includes Kodama's data, protected however your backup is protected — encrypted, if you've turned that on, which you should.
Second, we're building something called the Forest — a way for a small circle of people to see each other's trees. Not weather. Not words. Ever. The shapes travel sealed with keys that only your circle holds; the invitation itself carries the key in a way that never touches a server — ours included. When it ships I'll write that architecture up in the same detail, because the promise has to survive the feature: even the Forest can't read.
The one-time price and the privacy design are the same decision, by the way. You pay US$7.99 once, and then you are not the product, not the audience, not the data. You're just someone with a tree.
Kodama is a one-word journal for iPhone — US$7.99 once, no subscription, no account, no ads. Your words never leave your phone. Get it on the App Store.