Transcribatron — Terms of Use
Effective date: August 3, 2026
These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the Transcribatron application for iOS and macOS ("the App"), published by Marc Maguire ("we", "us", "our"). By installing or using the App, you agree to these Terms.
These Terms are in addition to Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement (the "Apple Standard EULA"), which applies to all apps distributed via the App Store. Where these Terms add to or clarify the Apple Standard EULA, these Terms govern your relationship with us regarding the App's features; where they conflict with the Apple Standard EULA on matters Apple reserves, the Apple Standard EULA governs.
1. What the App does
Transcribatron records audio and transcribes it to text on your device. It can optionally use artificial-intelligence ("AI") services to clean up, summarize, reformat, read aloud, or otherwise process that text. You choose whether to use on-device processing only, or to enable cloud AI features.
2. Recording laws and consent
This is the most important section of these Terms. Read it before you record anyone.
The App is a tool that records and transcribes audio at your direction. You alone decide what to record.
Laws governing the recording of conversations differ by country, state, and province. Many places require the consent of every participant, not just yours. Recording without the notice or consent the law requires can be a criminal offence and can expose you to civil claims.
Before you record any conversation, you are solely responsible for:
- knowing the recording and privacy laws that apply where you and where every other participant are located;
- giving any legally required notice; and
- obtaining any legally required consent, before the recording starts.
Other participants are not notified automatically. The App records locally on your device. Unlike meeting tools that join a call as a visible participant, nothing about Transcribatron announces itself to anyone else in the room or on the line. Telling them is entirely up to you.
We do not monitor what you record, we cannot see your recordings, and we accept no responsibility for recordings made in violation of applicable law. Nothing in the App — including any in-app summary of recording laws — is legal advice. Those materials are general information that may be incomplete or out of date; confirm the current law for your situation yourself.
3. Who can use the App
You must be at least 13 years old, or the higher minimum age required where you live, to use the App.
Cloud AI features are 18+. Everything the App does on your device — recording, transcription, on-device AI models, and on-device voices — is available at the age above. The cloud AI providers you can connect set their own age minimums, and some of them (currently including Google and ElevenLabs) require you to be 18. Google's API terms go further than most: they bar using the API as part of an application that is directed towards, or likely to be accessed by, people under 18. If you are under 18, do not turn on cloud AI features or connect a provider key.
Because you connect a provider using your own account and your own API key (section 4), that provider's age requirement is a term of your agreement with them. We cannot see, verify, or enforce it for them, and a provider may suspend your access with them if you do not meet it.
4. No accounts; bring-your-own AI key
The App does not require an account with us.
Cloud AI features are off unless you turn them on. If you turn them on, you connect an account you hold with a provider you choose — for example Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or xAI, or ElevenLabs for cloud voices — using an API key you obtained yourself. What travels directly from your device to that provider is the transcript or document text, along with the style instruction you chose, your custom vocabulary, any question you ask a transcript, calendar details of a linked meeting, and — when you dictate into a mail app on your Mac — the first name in the message's "To" field. If you turn on live coaching, the App sends portions of the in-progress transcript to your provider repeatedly during the meeting. The Privacy Policy sets this out in full. It never passes through us, and we cannot see, retrieve, or delete it.
Your use of any provider is a contract between you and that provider, governed by its terms and privacy policy, including its pricing, data-retention, and model-training practices. We are not a party to that relationship and are not responsible for a provider's acts, omissions, availability, charges, or handling of your data.
Before sending a transcript of a conversation to a cloud provider, consider whether you have the right to share other participants' words with that provider.
5. Trial, purchase, and refunds
The App is free to try for 7 days from first use on a device. After the trial, continued access to the full feature set requires a one-time lifetime purchase made through Apple's in-app purchase system.
All billing is handled by Apple under your Apple account and Apple's Media Services terms. We never receive or store your payment details. Refunds are handled by Apple under Apple's refund policies — request one through Apple. We have no ability to charge or refund you directly.
To confirm what you have purchased and unlock it across your devices, the App uses a purchase-validation service (RevenueCat), as described in the Privacy Policy.
"Lifetime" means for the lifetime of the App's availability on the App Store. It is a licence to the App as it exists and evolves — not a guarantee that any individual feature will exist forever: features that depend on third parties — cloud AI providers, Apple frameworks, iCloud — may change or stop working if those third parties change, and we may add, change, or retire individual features over time. A version already installed keeps working as built. We will not revoke a purchase you have made.
Apple's role. This agreement is between you and us, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the App or its content and has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for it. If the App fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple may refund the purchase price; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
6. Your content
Everything you record, and every transcript, summary, or note the App produces, belongs to you.
Your recordings and transcripts are stored on your device and, whenever your device is signed in to iCloud, in your personal iCloud account under your agreement with Apple. Sync follows your device's iCloud setting — there is no separate switch inside the App. See the Privacy Policy.
You grant us no licence to your content, because we need none. We do not receive, store, access, or process your recordings or transcripts on any server of ours — we operate no such servers. We cannot read your content, share it, sell it, or train anything on it.
7. Backups and loss of data
Because your content is stored only on your device and in your own iCloud, we hold no copy and cannot recover anything for you. Deleting the App deletes your recordings, transcripts, and notes from that device.
You are responsible for your own backups, whether through device backups or iCloud sync. We are not liable for loss of recordings, transcripts, or notes — including loss caused by device failure or loss, deletion of the App, iCloud sync behaviour, or an interrupted or failed recording — except where the law that applies to you does not allow us to exclude that liability.
8. Your responsibilities
You are solely responsible for:
- Lawful recording. See Section 2.
- Your content. You represent that you have the right to record, transcribe, and process the audio and text you use with the App, and that doing so does not violate any law or any other person's rights.
- Your AI provider account. You are responsible for your API keys, for any charges your provider bills you, and for complying with your provider's terms.
- Reviewing output. See Section 9.
9. AI output — accuracy and review
AI features are provided to assist you, not to replace your judgment.
Transcripts, speaker labels, and AI-generated summaries will contain errors. Words may be misheard. Speech may be attributed to the wrong speaker. AI processing may invent, omit, or misstate facts ("hallucinations"), and summaries may misrepresent the source.
AI output is a first draft, not a record. Verify it against the original audio before relying on it, acting on it, sharing it, or sending it — and do not treat it as an accurate account of what any person said. You use AI output at your own risk.
10. Not professional advice; high-stakes use
The App and any AI output are provided for general informational and productivity purposes only. They are not legal, medical, financial, accounting, tax, or other professional advice, and do not create any professional relationship.
The App is not certified for use as an official record — of legal proceedings, medical encounters, or anything else where accuracy carries legal or safety consequences. Do not use it as your only record of such a conversation.
11. Acceptable use
Use the App only where lawful. Do not use it to record people covertly where consent is required, to harass, stalk, or surveil anyone, or to break obligations you owe to others such as a non-disclosure agreement or workplace policy. Do not resell, sublicense, reverse-engineer, or misrepresent the App as your own — except to the extent applicable law permits this despite the restriction.
12. Licence to use the App
We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the App on devices you own or control, as permitted by the App Store terms. We retain all rights in the App itself, including its software, design, and name. This licence does not transfer any ownership to you.
If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation or compensation to you.
13. Third-party services
The App integrates with third-party services that have their own terms and privacy practices, including: AI and cloud-voice providers you choose to use (via your own key); Apple iCloud (for optional sync of your data to your own private iCloud account); Apple's in-app purchase system and our purchase-validation service (RevenueCat); AI assistant applications you choose to connect on your Mac, which then handle anything you allow them to read under their own terms; model-hosting services from which the App downloads on-device AI models; and external community platforms the App links to. We are not responsible for third-party services, and your use of them is governed by their respective agreements.
If you live in Quebec, or anywhere else whose consumer law prohibits parts of Sections 14, 15, or 19, those parts do not apply to you. Your legal warranties and the protections of your local law remain fully in force, and nothing in the three Sections that follow takes them away.
14. Disclaimer of warranties
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the App is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the App will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that any output will be accurate or reliable.
Where the consumer-protection law that applies to you does not permit these exclusions, they do not apply to you.
15. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will we be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, revenue, goodwill, or business, arising out of or relating to your use of (or inability to use) the App or any AI output, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. This includes losses caused by a third-party AI provider you chose to use.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the App will not exceed the amount you paid for the App and any in-app purchase.
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including rights you have under consumer-protection law that cannot be waived.
16. Indemnification
You agree to defend and indemnify us against third-party claims, damages, and reasonable legal costs arising from:
- recordings you made without legally required notice or consent;
- content you recorded, processed, or shared using the App in violation of another person's privacy, publicity, or intellectual-property rights; or
- your violation of applicable law — including biometric-privacy law — in your use of the App.
This obligation does not apply to claims caused by our own violation of these Terms.
17. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will update the effective date and give you notice in the App. Continuing to use the App after the updated effective date means the updated Terms apply to you.
18. Assignment
You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may assign these Terms, in whole or in part, to a successor entity — including a corporation formed to continue publishing the App — or in connection with a merger, reorganization, or sale of the App or its assets. Your rights under these Terms are unaffected by any such assignment.
19. Governing law and forum
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules.
You and we agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the App will be brought exclusively in the courts of Ontario, and each of us submits to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law where you live, including any right you have to bring proceedings in your local courts or before a local consumer authority.
20. General
This licence ends automatically if you materially breach these Terms, and ends whenever you delete the App. Ending it does not entitle you to a refund from us; refunds are Apple's (Section 5).
If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including Sections 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, and 19 — survive. These Terms, together with the Apple Standard EULA and the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the App.
21. Contact
Questions about these Terms: support@transcribatron.ca.