2. Ascend
2.1 Your account
You sign up with an email address and password. Accounts are managed by our database and authentication provider, Supabase; we never see your password. Account emails, such as password-reset codes, are sent through our email provider, Resend. Ascend keeps you signed in with a session stored in your iPhone's Keychain.
Every account gets a handle when it's created (for example “user12”), which you can change. Other signed-in Ascend users can find you by searching your handle unless you turn off Show me in search (Settings › Privacy › Handle & Privacy).
2.2 Profile and onboarding
We ask for your preferred name, your units (metric or imperial), your main goal, your experience level, how many days a week you train (4 unless you change it) and the equipment you have. The rest is optional: date of birth, biological sex (you can choose Prefer not to say), height, weight, any injuries or limitations you type in, and dietary preferences, which include religious ones such as Halal and Kosher. We also ask whether you want to connect Apple Health and whether you want reminders.
Some of this is health information, and dietary preferences can reveal religious belief. We use your answers to build your plans, calculate targets and tailor advice. Your preferred name is also shown to your followers next to workouts you share (section 2.8). Your answers are saved as you go, so they're kept even if you don't finish onboarding.
You can change your date of birth, biological sex, height, weight and units later in Settings › Stats, and your goal, experience level, training days, equipment and dietary preferences when you create a new plan in the Plans tab. To change your preferred name or the injuries you entered, email privacy@aineara.com.
We also record, linked to your account, when you start, resume and finish onboarding and each step you view and complete, together with the goal you picked, the choice you made on the Apple Health step, your app version and the time, so we can see where onboarding is confusing.
2.3 What you log
Ascend stores what you record so it's available across sessions and devices: workouts (date, duration, exercises, sets, reps, weight, set type such as warm-up or drop set, and effort if you rate it), personal records and templates; meals and the foods in them, custom foods, recipes, and your calorie and macro (protein, carb and fat) targets; daily and weekly check-ins (mood, energy, hunger, soreness, stress and notes; the weekly check-in also records your weight and hours of sleep); habits; hydration; and your training plans. When you log a meal by voice, photo or label scan, the food is also saved as one of your custom foods.
When you search for a food, the words you type (including partial words as you type) and any barcodes you scan are stored with your account. We use this history to keep search fast and to find gaps in our food catalog.
2.4 Apple Health
If you connect Apple Health, Ascend asks to read five types of data: steps, resting heart rate, sleep, heart rate variability and respiratory rate. Ascend never writes anything to Apple Health.
While Ascend is open on your screen, it reads the last seven days from Apple Health and uploads one daily total or average per type to our database. This happens when the app opens or you go to the Today tab, when you come back to the app, and when the date changes, at most about once every 90 seconds. Individual readings, their exact times and which device recorded them are not uploaded. Ascend doesn't read Apple Health in the background.
How it's used:
- Sleep feeds your readiness score (shown in the app and in widgets, and used to decide whether Ascend suggests a recovery day), bedtime suggestions, your health timeline, your weekly report and your own challenges. If you allow AI features, your average sleep is also sent to Anthropic (section 2.6).
- Steps appear in your progress, in walking suggestions and in your own challenges.
- Resting heart rate, heart rate variability and respiratory rate are shown to you.
Apple Health data is never used for advertising or data mining, never sold, and never stored in iCloud by Ascend. Your readiness score and a cached weekly summary are kept on your iPhone, so they may be included in your iPhone's own backups.
You can change what Ascend reads at any time in the Health app. Turning access off stops new data from syncing, but doesn't delete what has already been uploaded. That stays until you delete your account, or until you ask us to delete it at privacy@aineara.com.
2.5 Camera, microphone and photos
- Barcode scanning reads the barcode on your iPhone. Only the barcode number is sent to us.
- Nutrition label scanning reads the label's text on your iPhone. The photo is never uploaded; only the nutrition values you choose to save are stored.
- Log by Voice turns your speech into text on your iPhone. Audio never leaves your device. The text is sent to our AI feature (section 2.6).
- Photo Meal Estimate uses a photo you pick from your library; Ascend doesn't need access to your photo library. A resized copy of that one photo is sent to Anthropic to estimate the meal. We don't store the photo.
2.6 AI features
Ascend's AI features are powered by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The first time you use one, Ascend asks your permission; nothing is sent to Anthropic unless you allow it. Requests go through our servers, and what we send never includes your name, email address or account ID.
| Feature | What is sent to Anthropic |
|---|
| AI Coach | Your message, plus: your readiness score and label, your training load, today's recovery recommendation, the training days planned this week, how many workouts you did in the last seven days and any notes on those workouts, your average sleep, and your calorie and protein targets if you're 18 or over. It also says whether you're 18 or over. |
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| Log Food by Voice | The text of what you said. |
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| Log Workout by Voice | The text of what you said. |
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| Photo Meal Estimate | A resized copy of the photo you picked. |
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| Weekly Report summary | Workouts completed that week, your average sleep, your average daily protein, how your weight changed, and your goal. |
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We don't store your AI Coach conversations, and Ascend doesn't save them on your iPhone either: a chat stays in the app's memory only while it's open. Each message is still sent to Anthropic to get a reply. We don't save your AI prompts, photos or replies in our database. Our servers keep a daily count of your AI requests, to apply your plan's limits, and our server logs record the food name and portion size that a food estimate identified. Your weekly summary is saved on your iPhone. Anything the AI suggests becomes part of your data only if you choose to save it.
Anthropic processes this information on our behalf to provide the feature. You can read how Anthropic handles data in its privacy policy.
To stop sharing, go to Settings › AI Features › Stop Sharing with AI. You can allow it again the next time you open an AI feature.
2.7 Food databases
When you search for a food, our servers send what you type, including partial words as you type, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central, unless our own food catalog already has enough good matches. When you choose a food that came from FoodData Central, our servers may also ask it for that food's serving details. If a barcode isn't in our catalog, our servers send the barcode number to Open Food Facts. Neither receives your name, email address or account ID.
2.8 Who can see what
| Information | Who can see it |
|---|
| Your handle | Any signed-in Ascend user, through handle search, unless you turn off Show me in search. Even then, people you're connected with (followers, people you follow, anyone you've sent or received a follow or partner request to or from, and your partners) can see it. |
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| Whether your account is private | Any signed-in Ascend user. |
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| Your display name | Your followers, next to workouts you share. |
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| Workouts you share | Your followers see when the workout started, how long it lasted, any notes and the kudos count. Sharing is off by default and chosen per workout. |
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| All your workouts, shared or not | Your accountability partners see when each workout started, how long it lasted and whether you shared it. They can't see your exercises, sets or weights; in the app, they see your workout streak. |
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| Sets, reps, weights and personal records | Only you. |
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| Challenges | Anyone signed in to Ascend can see how many people have joined an open challenge. Other participants can also see an account identifier for each participant and when they joined. Nobody else sees your progress. |
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| Your profile, check-ins, meals, targets, habits, hydration, recipes, custom foods and Apple Health data | Only you. |
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A private account (Settings › Privacy › Handle & Privacy) means new followers need your approval; people who already follow you keep following. If you report a post, we see the report, the post and the people involved so we can review it. Blocking someone hides you from each other in search and feeds and ends any accountability partnership between you.
2.9 Purchases
Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple; we never see your payment details. When you buy, Ascend gives Apple an identifier for your Ascend account (not your name or email address) so the purchase is linked to it. We store your plan, the product you bought, Apple's transaction ID and when your subscription renews or expires.
2.10 Notifications
Reminders are scheduled on your iPhone: workouts, streaks, water and meals, plus a one-off suggestion to take a recovery day when your readiness is low or your training load jumps. For social notifications we store your device's push token and send, through Apple, one of four fixed messages: a new follower, a follow request, an accepted request or kudos.
Notifications never include anyone's name, any numbers or anything you've logged. The one that depends on your data is the recovery-day suggestion, which may say your recovery is low or your training load has jumped. It can appear on your Lock Screen, and you can turn it off with Ascend's notification setting in your iPhone's Settings.
2.11 On your iPhone
Ascend's widgets can show your readiness score, streak, calories and protein, and water on your Home Screen and Lock Screen, where anyone holding your phone can see them. When you sign out, Ascend clears the widgets and your reminders. A few things can stay on the phone until you delete the app: an unfinished workout, your cached weekly summary, export files and share images you created, your streak-reminder time and when you last logged, the last calorie and macro targets Ascend suggested if you dismissed or applied them, and the phone's notification token.
2.12 Analytics
Ascend has no third-party analytics. Apart from the onboarding steps (section 2.2), food search history (section 2.3) and a daily count of your AI requests (section 2.6), all kept until you delete your account, we don't record how you use the app.
Our servers and providers keep technical logs to run and fix the service, for a limited period set by those providers. These can include search words, food names and your account ID. Our sign-in provider's logs also record the email address used to sign in, sign up or reset a password.