Terms of use

1.Agreement to these terms

These terms of use (“terms”) are an agreement between you and Sand & Signal Studios LLC, an Arizona limited liability company based in Phoenix, Arizona (“we”, “us” or “our”). They cover the Budo iPhone app, the services that support it and this website (together, “Budo”).

By creating an account or otherwise using Budo, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use Budo. Our privacy policy explains how we handle your information.

2.Who can use Budo

Budo is for adults. You may use it only if you are at least 18 years old, able to form a binding contract, and not barred from using it under the laws that apply to you. Budo is for your own personal, non-commercial use.

3.Your account

To keep a journal you need an account, which you can create with an email address and password, Sign in with Apple or Google Sign-In. When you do:

• Each account is for one person. Don’t share it or use someone else’s.
• Give accurate information, including your birthday, and keep it up to date.
• Keep your sign-in details secure. You are responsible for activity on your account.
• Tell us promptly at the address in section 22 if you think someone else has accessed it.

If you sign in with Apple or Google, their own terms also apply to that sign-in.

4.The service and free usage limits

Budo lets you log what you eat by typing, speaking, scanning a barcode or taking a photo, and gives you estimates of calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat that you can edit.

Budo is free. There are no purchases in the app. AI estimates are subject to a daily allowance: at present, 20 estimates a day, including up to 2 photo estimates. Short cooldowns and request limits also apply. Manual entries and saved meals don’t count toward the allowance.

We may change these limits, or the features included, at any time — for example, to keep the service reliable or affordable to run. If we ever offer paid features, we will tell you the price and any extra terms before you are charged.

5.Acceptable use

Please use Budo the way it’s meant to be used. You agree not to:

• use Budo for anything unlawful, or to harm, harass or deceive anyone;
• access, or try to access, another person’s account or data;
• scrape, crawl or harvest data from Budo or its services, or use automated means to send requests;
• copy, modify, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the app or its services, except where the law expressly allows it;
• evade, or try to evade, usage limits, cooldowns or eligibility checks, for example by creating multiple accounts;
• interfere with or bypass Firebase App Check, App Attest or any other security feature;
• disrupt, overload or impair Budo or the systems it runs on, or introduce malware;
• use Budo, or its estimates, to build or train a competing product or model; or
• resell, sublicense or otherwise make Budo available to others.

6.Your content

Your food notes, photos, corrections, goals and other things you enter (“your content”) belong to you.

You give us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to store, copy, process and transmit your content only as needed to provide, maintain and secure Budo for you. That includes sending it to the service providers named in our privacy policy — for example, sending a food note or photo to Google Gemini for an estimate when you have allowed AI. This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies our providers keep for the limited periods described in the privacy policy.

You are responsible for what you submit. Only submit content you have the right to share, and don’t submit content that is unlawful or that includes other people’s personal information without their permission.

7.AI and nutrition estimates

Budo’s estimates come from AI models (currently Google Gemini) and from food databases such as USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts. They are approximations and can be wrong. Portions, recipes, brands and labels vary; AI can misread a note or photo; and database entries can be incomplete or out of date. Calorie and macro goals that Budo suggests are general starting points calculated from the information you enter.

Check estimates against packaging and your own judgment, and edit them when they don’t match your meal. Don’t rely on Budo to identify allergens or ingredients. You are responsible for the decisions you make using Budo.

8.Not medical advice

Budo is a general wellness journal. It is not a medical device and does not provide medical, nutritional or dietary advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition.

Budo is not suitable for treating an eating disorder and is not a substitute for a doctor, registered dietitian or other qualified clinician. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, are managing a medical condition, or have a history of disordered eating, talk to a clinician before using Budo or following any calorie or macro goal.

If food tracking starts to feel stressful or harmful, take a break and talk to someone you trust or a healthcare professional. In an emergency, contact your local emergency services.

9.Apple Health and third-party services

Connecting Apple Health is optional. Data you choose to write to Health is stored and managed by Apple under Apple’s terms, and turning a connection off in Budo doesn’t remove what’s already there.

Budo relies on services run by others, including Apple, Google and public food databases. We don’t control those services and aren’t responsible for their availability, content or terms. Links to other websites are provided for convenience only.

10.Our intellectual property

Budo — including the app, its software, design, text, graphics and the Budo name — belongs to Sand & Signal Studios LLC or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. These terms don’t give you any right to use our name, logos or branding.

Subject to these terms, we give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to download and use the Budo app on Apple devices you own or control, as permitted by Apple’s Usage Rules. We reserve all rights not expressly granted.

11.Feedback

We welcome ideas and suggestions. If you send us feedback, you agree that we may use it to improve Budo without any obligation or payment to you.

12.Privacy

Our privacy policy describes what Budo collects, who processes it, how long it is kept and how to delete it. It forms part of these terms.

13.Deleting your account

You can stop using Budo at any time. To delete your account and journal, open Settings → Account → Delete account in the app. If you can’t open the app, see Support for how to ask us to delete it.

14.Suspension and termination

We may suspend or close your account, or limit your access to Budo, if you break these terms, if your use creates a risk or possible legal exposure for us or others, or if we are required to by law. Where it’s reasonable and lawful, we will tell you why.

If your account is closed, your right to use Budo ends. Parts of these terms that by their nature should continue — including sections 7, 8, 10, 11 and 16 through 21 — still apply.

15.Changes to Budo and to these terms

Budo will change over time. We may add, change, limit or remove features, or stop offering Budo altogether. If we plan to stop offering Budo, we will try to give reasonable notice in the app or on this website.

We may also update these terms. When we do, we will post the new version here and change the effective date. If a change is material, we will also note it in the app or on this website before it takes effect where practical. If you keep using Budo after the new terms take effect, you accept them. If you don’t agree, stop using Budo and delete your account.

16.Disclaimer of warranties

Budo is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement and accuracy.

We don’t promise that Budo will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that estimates will be accurate, or that your data will never be lost. Some places don’t allow certain warranties to be excluded, so some of this section may not apply to you.

17.Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Sand & Signal Studios LLC and its members, managers, employees and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data or goodwill, arising out of or relating to Budo or these terms — including decisions made in reliance on an estimate — even if we have been told such damages are possible.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to Budo or these terms is limited to the greater of US$50 or the amount you paid us for Budo in the 12 months before the claim arose. Budo is free, so that amount is currently $0.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that can’t be limited under applicable law, such as liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence where the law doesn’t allow it to be limited.

18.Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Sand & Signal Studios LLC from third-party claims, and the reasonable costs of defending them (including reasonable attorneys’ fees), arising from your misuse of Budo or your violation of these terms or of someone else’s rights. This doesn’t apply to the extent a claim is caused by our own fault. We will tell you promptly about any such claim.

19.Governing law and venue

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Arizona and applicable U.S. federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to Budo or these terms will be heard only in the state or federal courts located in Maricopa County, Arizona, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction.

Before going to court, please contact us so we can try to resolve the issue informally. If you live somewhere whose consumer protection laws give you the right to bring a claim in your local courts or under local law, this section doesn’t take that right away.

20.Apple App Store terms

If you downloaded Budo from Apple’s App Store, the following also applies:

1. Agreement. These terms are between you and Sand & Signal Studios LLC only, not Apple. We, not Apple, are solely responsible for Budo and its content.
2. License. Your license to use Budo is limited to a non-transferable license to use it on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple’s Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that it may also be accessed by other accounts associated with you through Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
3. Maintenance and support. We are solely responsible for any maintenance and support of Budo. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support services for it.
4. Warranty. If Budo fails to conform to any warranty that applies to it, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any, to you. Budo is free, so there is no purchase price to refund. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for Budo. Any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses from a failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility, to the extent they are not disclaimed in these terms.
5. Product claims. We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to Budo or your possession or use of it, including product liability claims, claims that Budo fails to conform to any legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws, including in connection with Budo’s use of HealthKit.
6. Intellectual property claims. If a third party claims that Budo or your possession or use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
7. Legal compliance. You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
8. Third-party terms. You must comply with any third-party terms that apply when using Budo, such as your wireless data service agreement.
9. Third-party beneficiary. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right (and is deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement (the “Standard EULA”) also applies to your use of Budo. Nothing in these terms reduces any right you have under it. Questions, complaints or claims about Budo should be sent to us using the details in section 22.

21.General

• Entire agreement. These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Budo and replace any earlier terms.
• Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the rest will stay in effect.
• No waiver. If we don’t enforce a part of these terms, that doesn’t mean we give up the right to enforce it later.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these terms without our written consent. We may transfer ours as part of a merger, acquisition, sale of assets or by operation of law, and these terms will continue to protect you.
• Notices. We may give you notices in the app, by email to the address on your account, or on this website.
• Relationship. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, employment, agency or joint-venture relationship between you and us.

22.Contact

Questions about these terms, or any questions, complaints or claims about Budo, can be sent to:

Sand & Signal Studios LLC
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
john@sandandsignalstudios.com