A private sun app should let you build a daylight habit without creating a marketing identity first. Basky’s privacy story is not a footnote under a growth chart. It is how the product is shaped: no account, no ads, no tracking — then optional location, optional Circles, optional Health, each with a short honest sentence.

Tour: how Basky works. Account-free UV framing: UV app without account.

No account is a feature

Signup walls invent passwords, recovery emails, and cloud profiles you did not ask for. Basky skips that. Your Fitzpatrick type, daylight streak, and session history live on your device. You open the app and bask. That is enough.

Circles still work without a Basky login. They use an anonymous on-device identity and an unguessable invite code. Leave anytime. No public people directory.

No ads, no tracking

The Today screen is not a billboard. Basky does not need to watch how long you hesitated on the timer to sell you something adjacent. The free core stays free; delight funding, if you choose it, is Basky Forever — a one-time cosmetic unlock, never a subscription that rents privacy back to you.

Location is optional and narrow

Allow it and Basky asks Open-Meteo for live UV so your safe sun timer can be local. Decline it and you still get a usable fallback with a clear note. Coordinates are for weather, not for a dossier. They are not an ad targeting signal. They are not a Circles map pin.

Circles share almost nothing

Sunshine Circles show a first name you choose and a simple ☀️ sun-day signal (plus your Basky look). Not GPS. Not streak length. Not the vitamin D estimate. Not session timestamps. Social cheer without a surveillance feed. Glossary: sunshine circle meaning.

Apple Health stays write-only

If you enable Save to Apple Health, Basky may write Time in Daylight — duration only. It never reads steps, heart, sleep, labs, or other apps’ entries. It never writes the vitamin D estimate into Health. Full page: Apple Health daylight.

Privacy does not weaken the safety math

Private does not mean vague. Windows still use Fitzpatrick type plus UV, about 60% of a MED, clamp 5–90 minutes. MED references (J/m²): I 200, II 250, III 350, IV 450, V 600, VI 1000. Over-exposure still earns nothing. Sunscreen, clothing, shade, and clinicians still matter. Privacy is not a license to burn, and safety is not an excuse to collect you.

Illustration only: UV 5 might land near ~29 minutes for a mid type. Your skin and sky decide. Basky will not trade that personalization for an account graph.

What Basky will never claim privacy means

  • That the app is a medical vault or HIPAA product story.
  • That you should hide outdoor habits from a doctor who needs them.
  • That “private” equals “untraceable on a shared family phone” — device access is still device access.
  • That Forever buyers get a longer window. Cosmetics do not buy dose.

Who this is for

People who want UV minutes without a CRM entry. Anyone comparing wellness apps and tired of forced accounts. Readers who liked the promise in sun app no subscription and want the privacy half spelled out.

Now on the iOS App Store. More in the FAQ and about page. Contact andrewkittridge@icloud.com. Keep the daylight. Leave the dossier.

Privacy as product shape

Privacy pages often read like legal leftovers. Basky’s version is a product shape document: remove the account, remove the ads, narrow the location purpose, minimize Circles fields, write-only Health, on-device history. Each choice deletes a class of misuse before a policy PDF has to apologize for it.

What “no tracking” means here

Basky is not built to follow you across the web, build lookalike audiences, or score your bask behavior for advertisers. The sun loop does not need that machinery. Crash diagnostics, if a platform requires them, should never become a behavioral dossier — the design intent is restraint over cleverness.

Shared phones and practical limits

Privacy is not magic. A shared family iPhone can still be unlocked by someone else. Device backups follow Apple’s rules. Basky cannot promise anonymity against physical access. It can promise not to invent a cloud identity you never created, and not to hang your streak on an email you never wanted to give.

Circles and the social minimum

First name + sun signal is the social minimum that still feels human. Adding streak length would invite competition. Adding location would invite worry. Adding estimates would invite fake medical bragging. Basky stops at cheer. Details: Sunshine Circles.

Government, employers, and schools

Basky is not an attendance system for recess compliance or workplace outdoor quotas. If an institution wants surveillance sunlight metrics, this is the wrong app — by design. Human outdoor guidance can still be kind; monitoring kits are a different product category Basky refuses.

Safety math stays intact

Private does not mean vague. Windows still use Fitzpatrick type plus live UV, about 60% of a MED, clamp five to ninety minutes, with MED references from 200 J/m² for type I through 1000 J/m² for type VI. Over-exposure still earns nothing. Sunscreen still matters. Illustration only: UV 5 may land near ~29 minutes for a mid type.

Read next

UV app without account, Apple Health daylight, how Basky works, FAQ, about. Now on iOS. andrewkittridge@icloud.com.