Peace of mind · 4 min read
What “local walking history” means
Local storage gives you a clear boundary for personal walks. It also means understanding maps, backups and what happens if you lose your phone.
Published · Kai Moves editorial
A route can reveal more than a distance. It might show a favorite park, the street where you live, or the time you tend to leave. It is reasonable to want a clear answer about where that history goes.
Local history means a local archive
Kai Moves keeps observed daily totals, saved route traces, personal route names, calibration observations, preferences and planned walks in the app’s container on your iPhone. There is no Kai Moves account and no developer-operated server receiving your walking archive.
The app has no advertising, analytics SDKs, social feed or automatic cloud synchronization. You do not need to create an identity with Kai Moves before you can count steps or keep a walk.
Local does not mean every request stays on the phone
A map service needs some information to provide a map or directions. Apple Maps handles those requests in Kai Moves. Relevant map areas and route coordinates can be transmitted to Apple, including when you ask for a new route after changing waypoints.
That is different from uploading your complete saved walking archive or calibration model to Kai Moves. It is still a network boundary worth understanding. Apple’s Maps privacy information explains Apple’s practices.
Likewise, Apple processes App Store purchases. Kai Moves uses verified purchase information to determine Pro access and restore eligible purchases. Your payment card details are handled by Apple.
Recording starts with your choice
A mapped walk begins when you explicitly start recording. An active recording can continue with the screen locked using iOS location capabilities. The app should make that recording state clear, and iOS may show its location indicator.
This is not passive logging of everywhere you go. Daily step counting can work without location access, provided Motion & Fitness access and supported sensors are available. You can decline notifications too.
A privacy choice with a recovery tradeoff
Kai Moves excludes the walking database, route traces and identifying preferences from iCloud and device backups. There is no automatic sync or cloud restore service. Losing or erasing the phone, or deleting the app, can therefore lose the history.
That matters if you are deciding whether to use the app as your only long-term record. Device-local storage creates a clear boundary, but it cannot offer the recovery convenience of a cloud archive at the same time.
Deleting a walk has a meaning
Individual walks and personal walking history can be deleted in the app. Removing a walk also removes the calibration observations it contributed. The free recording allowance is kept separately: deleting a route does not return one of the three complimentary successful recordings.
A fully local app cannot honestly promise an irreversible lifetime quota across every possible erase, reinstall or device change. That limitation should not be confused with a hidden account system; Kai Moves does not have one.
Ask a precise privacy question
“Does it use the internet?” and “Does the developer receive my walking history?” are different questions. With Kai Moves, Apple Maps and purchases use Apple’s services, while the personal archive stays in the app on your device. This is why a complete offline-maps promise would be inaccurate.
Read the full privacy page for permissions, local deletion and website hosting details. The support page explains current launch and contact availability.