Stako is built so that your workouts stay with you. This policy explains what happens to your information when you use Stako, the workout app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch developed by Ilyas Abdulkadir (“we”, “us”).
In short
- There is no account and no sign-up.
- We don’t collect, sell or share your personal data, and we don’t run servers that receive it.
- There are no ads, no analytics and no tracking in the App.
- Your workouts, plan, progress log and settings are stored on your devices.
- To read a post you save, your device contacts TikTok, Instagram or YouTube directly.
- When Stako can’t make sense of a post on its own, the post’s text (and sometimes a short clip of its audio) is sent to an AI service, OpenRouter, to build or translate the workout card (see “AI processing”).
- Apple Health data is only used to save your workouts and show your heart rate on Apple Watch. It is never sent to us, to AI services or to RevenueCat, and never used for advertising.
- Subscriptions are bought through Apple and checked with RevenueCat (see “Purchases”).
Information we don’t collect
We don’t collect your name, email address, contacts, location, photos, browsing history, advertising identifier or usage data. We don’t use third-party analytics, crash-reporting or advertising tools, and we don’t track you across other apps or websites.
Information stored on your devices
To work, Stako stores the following on your iPhone or iPad:
- the links you save, with the post’s title, creator name, caption, thumbnail and, when the App read the video, a transcript of what it says;
- the workout cards made from them, their translations, your edits and personal notes, and your collections;
- your weekly plan, the workouts you’ve done, your streak and your progress log (sets, reps, times and weights you record);
- your settings, such as language, units, timer and voice-cue preferences, and whether to save workouts to Apple Health.
This information is kept in the App’s storage on your device, which the App shares with its share extension and its Live Activity. It is not synced to iCloud by Stako and we don’t receive it. It may be included in your device backups, depending on your iCloud and backup settings. Deleting the App deletes this information from your device.
If you use the Apple Watch app, your iPhone sends a copy of up to 30 of your workouts to your watch so you can run them there (see “Apple Watch”).
When you save a post
When you share or paste a link into Stako, your device connects directly to that service, such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or the website the link points to, to read the public post: its page, preview information, thumbnail, caption and, where the service provides them, the video’s subtitles. If that isn’t enough, the App also opens the video’s public stream to look at a few frames and listen to its audio (see the next section). The video is not downloaded or kept.
These services receive the requests from your device, including your IP address, and handle them under their own privacy policies. Stako doesn’t log in to these services and doesn’t keep their cookies. We don’t see these requests.
If you watch a post inside Stako, it plays in the service’s official embedded player, which loads from that service.
Reading the video on your device
To find exercises that aren’t in the caption, Stako can:
- read text shown in the video by sampling a few frames and using Apple’s on-device text recognition;
- copy up to three minutes of the video’s audio to a temporary file, which is deleted as soon as it has been read.
Where you have allowed speech recognition, Stako may use Apple’s speech recognition to turn the audio into text. It runs on your device when your device supports that language; otherwise Apple may process the audio on its servers under Apple’s privacy policy.
AI processing
When the caption, subtitles and on-device reading aren’t enough to build a clear workout card, Stako uses an AI service. Requests go from your device to OpenRouter (openrouter.ai), which forwards them to the provider of the AI model in use, currently models from Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini), which may run on those companies’ own or partner cloud platforms. This can happen in four situations:
- Building a card. The post’s caption, the video’s subtitles or transcript, and the text read from its frames, each shortened to a few thousand characters.
- Listening to a video. Only when Stako can’t get any words from a video another way: a clip of the video’s audio, at most its first three minutes, together with the caption, sent to an audio-capable model (currently Google Gemini).
- Translating a card. When Apple’s on-device translation can’t translate a workout into your language, or when you tap “Translate with AI”: the card’s title, summary, notes, block names and exercise names, weight hints and exercise notes.
- Cleaning up a card. When you tap “Clean up with AI”: the workout card, the caption and the transcript.
Nothing else is sent: no account details, device identifiers, Apple Health data, progress log, plan or personal notes. Because the request comes from your device, OpenRouter receives your IP address, and the request carries the App’s name for attribution. The content sent comes from the public post you saved and normally isn’t information about you.
The answer comes back to your device and is stored there. Cards built with AI are marked “Structured with AI” in the App. OpenRouter and the model providers handle the requests under their own privacy policies and data retention terms; see OpenRouter’s privacy policy at https://openrouter.ai/privacy.
Building a card happens automatically when it’s needed, so if you don’t want a post’s content to be processed this way, please don’t save that post. You can turn off automatic translation in Settings → Translate workouts; cleaning up and “Translate with AI” only run when you tap them.
Translation
Stako first translates workouts using its built-in exercise names and Apple’s Translation framework, which works on your device. Apple may download a language pack the first time a language pair is used. Only when that isn’t possible does Stako use the AI service described above. The original text always stays on the card.
Apple Health
Saving to Apple Health is off until you turn it on, and Stako only asks for access to Apple Health when you do.
- On iPhone and iPad, Stako only writes data: when you finish a workout, it saves it to Apple Health as a workout (its type, start and end time). It does not read any of your health data.
- On Apple Watch, while a workout is running, Stako reads your heart rate and active energy to show them on the watch, and saves the finished workout to Apple Health when you’ve allowed it.
Health data stays on your devices and in Apple Health. We never receive it. It is never sent to OpenRouter, to AI model providers or to RevenueCat; never used for advertising, marketing or data mining; never sold; and never shared with anyone. You can change or withdraw Stako’s access at any time in the Health app or in your device’s Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices. Data already saved to Apple Health is managed in the Health app.
Apple Watch
Your iPhone and Apple Watch talk to each other directly using Apple’s WatchConnectivity. The iPhone sends your workouts (up to 30) and the state of a workout you’re playing to the watch. The watch sends its controls and, when you finish a workout on the watch, a summary (duration, sets and reps you logged, and the average heart rate and active energy it measured) to your iPhone, which adds the workout and sets to your history. Heart rate and active energy are not kept in Stako on your iPhone.
Notifications and Live Activities
If you allow notifications, Stako schedules step reminders (“Rest · 30 s”, “Go: Burpees”) on your device while a workout runs in the background, and removes them when you return to the App. The Live Activity on your Lock Screen is updated by the App on your device. No push service is used and no notification data is sent to us.
Purchases
If you buy Stako Pro, the purchase is made through Apple, and we don’t receive your name, payment details or Apple Account. To check whether you have Stako Pro and to load the current plans, the App uses RevenueCat, a subscription service. RevenueCat receives your App Store purchase records, a random ID the App creates (not linked to your identity), your device model and system version, the App’s version, your country or App Store region and your IP address. We use this only to unlock Pro features, show the right plans and see sales totals, never for advertising or tracking. RevenueCat handles this data under its privacy policy at https://www.revenuecat.com/privacy. Apple also gives us sales reports that don’t identify you.
Children
Stako is not directed to children under 13, or under 16 in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Your choices
Because your data stays on your devices, you’re in control of it:
- edit or delete any workout, logged session, plan entry or collection in the App;
- turn off “Translate workouts”, “Save workouts to Apple Health” or notifications at any time;
- delete everything by removing Stako from your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
How long information is kept
Information on your devices is kept until you delete it or the App. We don’t keep any copies. OpenRouter, the AI model providers and RevenueCat keep the data they receive according to their own policies; for RevenueCat, see the link above, and for OpenRouter, https://openrouter.ai/privacy.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights under data protection laws such as the GDPR or the UK GDPR, including the right to access, correct or delete your data, to object to or restrict its use, and to complain to your local data protection authority.
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, Ilyas Abdulkadir is the controller for the processing described here. We rely on the following legal bases: providing the App and the features you use, such as reading a post you saved, building and translating its workout card and checking your subscription (performance of a contract); keeping the App working reliably (legitimate interests); and your explicit consent for Apple Health, which you give in Apple’s permission screen and can withdraw at any time. OpenRouter, RevenueCat and some AI model providers are based in the United States; where required, transfers rely on appropriate safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
As we don’t hold personal data about you, there is usually nothing for us to access, correct or delete, but you can contact us with any request or question. For data held by RevenueCat or OpenRouter, you can also contact them directly.
Changes to this policy
If we change how Stako handles information, we’ll update this policy and the date at the top of this page. If a change is significant, we’ll let you know in the App or on this website.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Contact us at support@stako.fit.