Overview
Isai is a music player for iPhone, iPad and Mac, built by ARRcade. It plays music you already own, from storage you already control. The guiding principle is simple: ARRcade is not in the middle. There is no ARRcade account, no ARRcade server, no advertising and no analytics or tracking SDK of any kind in the app.
The only network connections Isai makes are to the storage provider you choose to connect — and it makes none at all if the music you point it at is a folder on the device.
Isai does not collect personal data. It does not phone home, because there is nowhere to phone. Your music streams directly from your provider to your device, your credentials live in your own Keychain, and your library syncs through your own iCloud account. ARRcade sees none of it.
What We Collect
ARRcade collects nothing. There is no analytics SDK, no advertising network and no third-party crash reporter in Isai. Here is the full picture:
| Data Type | Collected? | Accessible to ARRcade? |
|---|---|---|
| Personal information | Not Collected | No |
| Usage analytics or telemetry | Not Collected | No |
| Your audio files, tags or artwork | Not Collected | No |
| Location data and device identifiers | Not Collected | No |
| Storage provider credentials | Keychain Only | No |
| Library index (tags and artwork) | On Device | No |
| Sources, settings, favorites, playlists, play history and positions | Your iCloud | No |
“Your iCloud” means exactly that: the data rides your own iCloud account, under your Apple Account, governed by Apple’s terms. ARRcade has no key to it and no way to read it.
Your Storage Providers
Isai connects only to the storage you ask it to connect to. Nothing is proxied through ARRcade — audio streams straight from your provider to your device, and the index is built on the device from what the provider returns.
- MEGA — an account you own, or a folder link you were given.
- Dropbox — an account you own, connected with Dropbox’s own sign-in.
- WebDAV — any server you name yourself: Nextcloud, ownCloud, Synology, pCloud, Koofr, Box and the like.
- A folder in Files — needs no network connection at all.
ARRcade operates no backend for Isai. There is no relay, no transcoding service and no catalogue. Every byte of audio travels from the provider you chose to the device you are holding.
Each provider is an independent company with its own privacy policy, which governs the account you hold with them. ARRcade receives no data from any of them.
| Provider | What Isai does with it | Privacy Policy |
|---|---|---|
| MEGA | Lists folders, reads tags and streams audio from the account or folder link you connect | mega.io/privacy |
| Dropbox | Lists folders, reads tags and streams audio from the account you sign in to | dropbox.com/privacy |
| Your WebDAV server | Lists folders, reads tags and streams audio from the address you typed in | Set by whoever runs the server — often you |
Credentials & Keychain
Everything that unlocks a source — MEGA session and folder keys, WebDAV usernames and passwords, OAuth tokens — is held in the device Keychain, and in your iCloud Keychain when you have it switched on so your other devices can use the same source.
- Credentials are never written to a plain file, a log, or a backup outside the Keychain.
- ARRcade never receives them. They go to the provider that issued them, and nowhere else.
- Removing a source removes its credentials.
iCloud & Your Library
Isai keeps your shelf consistent across your own devices using your own iCloud account. Two separate mechanisms are involved, and both of them are yours:
- Key-value store — sources, settings, favorites, playlists, play history and playback positions.
- The app’s private iCloud container — a mirror of the library index (tags and artwork), so an album scanned on one device appears on the others without a second scan.
The library index itself is stored on the device. The iCloud copy exists so your other devices do not have to rebuild it.
Both the key-value store and the container live in your iCloud account, under your Apple Account. ARRcade cannot read either one. If you sign out of iCloud or turn iCloud off for Isai, the app keeps working from the copy on the device.
Play On & the Local Network
Play On lets one copy of Isai control another — picking your Mac from your iPhone, for instance, so the queue and transport move to the device wired to your DAC.
- Each install advertises itself over Bonjour as
_isai._tcpand discovers others the same way. - Connections are made only to other copies of Isai on the same local network. There is no account, no server and no relay — nothing leaves the LAN.
- On iPhone and iPad, iOS asks for Local Network permission the first time; Isai declares
NSLocalNetworkUsageDescriptionto explain why. Decline it and the rest of the app works normally.
Permissions
Isai asks for as little as it can, and everything it does ask for is tied to something you started.
- Local Network — used only by Play On, as described above.
- Folder access — a folder becomes a source only when you pick it yourself. Isai has no background access to your file system.
- On the Mac, Isai runs in the App Sandbox with read-only access to the folders you pick.
Isai does not request your camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, photos or location.
Purchases
Isai Pro is a one-time purchase, handled entirely by Apple’s App Store. Payment is processed by Apple under Apple’s own terms, and your entitlement is read back from the App Store.
ARRcade receives no payment details — no card number, no billing address, no name. There is no ARRcade receipt server, no subscription and no advertising identifier involved.
App Store-Supplied Data
Isai is distributed through the App Store. Apple receives standard anonymous app metrics — crash reports, app launch counts and aggregate usage data — from all apps distributed through their platforms. ARRcade has access to these aggregated, anonymised metrics through App Store Connect, but has no access to any information that identifies an individual user through these channels.
For details on what Apple collects, see Apple’s Privacy Policy.
Your Rights
Because ARRcade holds no personal data about you, you are already in complete control at all times.
- Access: there is no personal data to access — ARRcade holds none.
- Deletion: removing a source deletes its credentials and its part of the index. Deleting Isai removes everything it stored on the device; anything it synced is in your own iCloud, which you control from Settings.
- Portability: your music was always yours, in your own storage, in its original files.
For users in the European Economic Area, this design means your GDPR rights are inherently satisfied — no request to us is required, because no personal data is processed by ARRcade. Your storage provider and Apple are independent controllers for the data they hold; consult their policies for your rights with respect to them.
For California residents: Isai does not sell personal information, so CCPA opt-out rights do not apply. There is no personal information to sell.
Children’s Privacy
Isai is a music player designed for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Because Isai collects no personal data from anyone, this is inherently satisfied.
Changes to This Policy
If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will update the date at the top of this page and note the change in the accompanying app update on the App Store.
Given Isai’s architecture — no account, no ARRcade server, no analytics and no third-party SDKs — the scope for meaningful change is narrow. Any change that introduced data collection would require explicit, informed opt-in before it took effect.
Contact
Questions about this Privacy Policy or how Isai handles data? We are happy to help.