Overview
Huqqs is a music visualizer and live lyrics app for iOS. It listens to music playing around you, identifies songs, displays synchronized lyrics, and generates real-time visuals driven by audio analysis. Some data stays only on your device, some persists locally so the app can keep your heard-song history, and some is sent to service providers that power song recognition, lyrics, cloud scene direction, analytics, and optional bug reports.
Information we access
Microphone audio
Huqqs uses your device's microphone to identify songs playing nearby via Apple's ShazamKit framework. Huqqs does not record or store raw microphone audio. Audio is processed in real time for song recognition and live visual response.
Song metadata and heard-song history
When a song is identified, Huqqs may receive metadata such as title, artist, ISRC, track key, and duration. This information is used to fetch lyrics, generate scene direction, and populate your heard-song history. Huqqs stores heard-song history locally on your device in a rolling 30-day window so songs persist between launches unless you clear them or remove the app.
Audio analysis and derived features
Huqqs performs real-time FFT, beat detection, and other audio analysis on-device to drive visuals. Those runtime values are transient. However, derived features may be sent to Huqqs cloud services to generate visual plans and lyric-related responses. These features are numeric summaries — current energy level, estimated tempo in BPM, dominant frequency band — never the audio itself, never waveforms, never anything that could be used to reconstruct what you were listening to.
Device identifier
Huqqs sends a per-vendor device identifier (Apple's identifierForVendor) with cloud requests for rate limiting and abuse prevention. This identifier is scoped to this app and resets if you uninstall Huqqs. It is not shared with advertisers and is not linked to your Apple ID.
User preferences
Settings such as preferred visual stage, mood, translation preferences, menu choices, color selections, dancing pet selection, pet enabled/disabled state, and pet on-screen position are stored locally on your device. This data stays on your device unless you submit a bug report that includes diagnostics.
AI and scene direction
Huqqs does not currently use Apple's on-device Foundation Models language model in production. Scene direction currently comes from Huqqs cloud plan generation and on-device rule-based systems. Huqqs does not use your microphone audio to train a custom model.
Third-party services
Huqqs communicates with the following third-party services:
| Service | Purpose | Data sent |
|---|---|---|
| ShazamKit | Song identification | Audio fingerprint (not raw audio) sent to Apple for recognition |
| Huqqs Cloud API | Scene direction, lyrics bootstrap, translation support, rate limiting | Song metadata, device identifier, country/region, derived audio features, translation preferences |
| Musixmatch | Lyrics and translation retrieval | Song metadata (title, artist, ISRC, duration, Apple Music IDs). Per Musixmatch terms, lyrics text is never cached server-side. |
| LRCLIB | Lyrics retrieval fallback | Song title, artist name, and duration |
| Apple iTunes Search API | Track metadata enrichment (artwork, release date, canonical title/artist) | Song title and artist name as a search query. No account identifiers sent. |
| Firebase Analytics | Product analytics and usage measurement (iOS app) | Anonymous event names, device model, OS version, app version, session counts. No IDFA, no ATT-tracked identifiers, no cross-app linkage. |
| Google Analytics 4 (huqqs.com) | Website traffic measurement | Page URL, referrer, browser/device type, approximate region. IP addresses are truncated by Google before storage. A first-party cookie (_ga) is set on your browser to recognize repeat visits. No personally identifying data is sent. |
| Firebase Crashlytics | Crash reporting and error telemetry | Crash logs, device model, OS version, diagnostic event data |
| Google Cloud Firestore | Cloud caching and optional bug report storage | Cached cloud request data and any bug report payload you submit |
These services have their own privacy policies: Apple / ShazamKit, Musixmatch, LRCLIB, Google / Firebase.
Data storage & retention
- Huqqs does not require user accounts or sign-in.
- Heard-song history persists locally in a rolling 30-day window until you clear it or delete the app.
- User preferences persist locally between sessions.
- Raw microphone audio is never recorded or stored.
- Runtime audio-analysis values are transient, but derived audio features may be transmitted to Huqqs cloud services for plan generation.
- Huqqs cloud bootstrap request data may be cached remotely for performance and reliability.
- If you voluntarily submit a bug report, its contents, diagnostics, and redacted logs may be stored remotely so we can investigate.
- Huqqs does not sync local heard-song history to iCloud or another Huqqs account service.
Data sharing
Huqqs does not sell or share your personal information as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) or equivalent US state privacy laws (VCDPA, CPA, CTDPA, UCPA). Huqqs shares limited data only with the service providers listed above.
Subscriptions
Huqqs Pro subscriptions are processed by Apple. Huqqs receives only the transaction status (active, expired, or refunded) from StoreKit — we do not receive your payment details, name, or billing address. Subscription management and refunds are handled by Apple.
Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel at apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions, or inside Huqqs under Settings → Manage Subscription. In TestFlight and sandbox environments, Huqqs unlocks Pro features automatically for testing purposes.
Legal basis for processing (EU/UK users)
We process your data under the following legal bases:
- Contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) — for song identification, lyrics fetch, and cloud scene generation.
- Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — for crash reporting, analytics, and rate limiting.
- Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — for microphone access, granted via the iOS system prompt.
International data transfers
Huqqs cloud services run in the United States (Google Cloud, us-central1 region). If you access Huqqs from outside the US, your song metadata, derived audio features, and device identifier may be transferred to the US. We rely on Google Cloud's Standard Contractual Clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework as the legal transfer mechanism.
Children's privacy
Huqqs is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- Access the data we hold about you.
- Request correction or deletion.
- Object to or restrict processing.
- Data portability.
- Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
Because Huqqs does not operate user accounts, most data lives on your device and can be cleared by deleting the app or clearing heard-song history in Settings. For any cloud-side data (bug reports, short-lived rate-limit records), email support@huqqs.com with enough detail for us to locate it — approximate submission time, app version, device model. Bug reports you voluntarily submit are retained for up to 12 months and then deleted.
Changes
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date.
Contact
Questions? Email support@huqqs.com.