What's yours stays on your iPhone, except what you choose to publish.

Everything Vela knows about you lives on your iPhone: your progress, your demo account and your settings are stored on the device. There's no analytics, no advertising and no third-party SDKs, and we have no server of our own and no account server. The only things that leave the phone are the ones you send: a score to Game Center, a challenge to a friend or, if you turn it on, your row in your country's ranking.

Sign in with Apple

You can sign in with your Apple ID, or not: the whole game works the same. If you do, Vela stores two things on your iPhone: an opaque identifier that only works for this app (it isn't your Apple ID or your email) and your first name, so your challenges are signed with it. We don't ask for your email, and none of this is sent anywhere.

To undo it, in the app: Profile → settings wheel → Unlink from Apple. The identifier and your Apple name are deleted, and there's nothing else to delete. Your progress, avatar and player name stay as they are, because they never depended on the account.

Player name and avatar

In Profile you can set a player name and pick an avatar. Both are stored on your iPhone and aren't sent anywhere. They only leave the phone when you send them: a challenge link or a card you share carries your player name and avatar.

Game Center

If you turn on Game Center, the scores you choose to send to the leaderboards (IQ, demo account result and weekly XP) are handled by Apple with your Game Center account, under Apple's privacy policy. Vela only sees what Game Center shows any player: nicknames, photos and scores on the leaderboards, your friends' and the global ones.

Your country's ranking

Game Center doesn't have country rankings, so Vela keeps them in a public iCloud database (Apple's CloudKit). Reading it asks for nothing. Appearing in it is your call: your row is only published when you tap “Appear in the Spain ranking” (or whichever country your iPhone is set to).

What gets published then: your ranking name (a market term and a trait you pick from two fixed lists, like “Bullish Kiwi”; your player name is never published), your avatar, your scores (IQ, demo account result for the week, month and all time, and weekly XP) and the country from your iPhone's region setting. It isn't your location: Vela doesn't ask for location permission or use GPS. The record is identified by an opaque iCloud key that isn't your Apple ID or your email, and only you can write to it. Your Apple name, your email and anything else on the phone are never published.

To stop appearing, in the app: Profile → settings wheel → Country ranking. Turning it off deletes the record entirely; it isn't just hidden. If you turn it back on, it's published again with your numbers at that moment.

Market data

Market mode requests public price candles from the Kraken and Coinbase APIs. The request carries the symbol and the interval, and nothing about you; as with any website, those services see the IP address the phone connects from. Candles are stored on the device so you can play offline.

Camera and Photos

The camera is used, if you ask for it, to compare a chart you point it at with a pattern. The image is analysed on the device and is never stored or sent.

If you save the card or clip you share to Photos, Vela only adds that image or video: the permission it asks for is add-only, and it never reads your photos.

Challenges

A challenge link contains the chart, your player name (or your first name, if you signed in with Apple and haven't set another), whether you got it right and how long you took. You share it, with whoever you want; this website only reads it to show it to whoever opens it, and doesn't store it.

Notifications and widgets

If you turn on notifications (today's challenge about to close, a reminder to play or the weekly summary), they're scheduled on your iPhone: there's no server sending them or knowing when you play.

Widgets read a summary of your progress (streak, today's challenge, IQ and demo account) that the app leaves on the iPhone itself, and that summary never leaves the phone. The Play button in Control Center just opens the app.

This website

playvela.app uses no cookies, no analytics and no social media pixels. It's hosted by Vercel: like any web server, it receives the IP address and the page requested in order to serve it. A challenge page reads the link to show who's challenging you, and stores nothing.

Contact and controller

Vela and this website are run by José Manuel Pascual Jiménez. For any privacy question: soporte@playvela.app.