Understory
Terms
Last updated 28 October 2026 · Understory for iPhone
These are the terms for using Understory. They are shorter than most for the same reason the privacy policy is short: the app keeps almost nothing and sends almost nothing, so there is not much to agree to.
Who we are
Understory is made by SPENCER AI (ABN 31 978 335 623), Victoria, Australia ("we", "us"). These terms are an agreement between you and us about the Understory app and this website. By downloading or using Understory you agree to them. You can reach a person at welcome@myspencer.ai.
What you are buying
One payment, once, for the app. There is no subscription, no renewal and no second charge. What you buy stays open for as long as Understory is available and supported on the App Store, and it comes back on a new phone through Already bought on the same Apple ID. Your first tree is free and stays free, started or received; the purchase is what opens the others and your foundations.
Rings are never charged for and never run out. A record you have already written is yours and stays readable whatever happens to your purchase, including if it is refunded. In that case the first tree you planted keeps growing and every year you have written stays in the app to read and to export.
Payment is handled by Apple, under Apple's terms. We never see a card number.
Offer codes. An offer code grants the same one-time purchase, is limited to one per Apple ID, and is redeemed through Apple.
The FOUNDERS offer. The first 1,000 redemptions of the FOUNDERS offer get the one-time purchase free. It is redeemed through Apple, from the link on our website and our social profiles, and is open only to Apple IDs that have not bought Understory before. Apple counts the redemptions and closes the offer at 1,000; the number on our website is our own count and can run behind Apple's. "Free for life" means the purchase is yours at no cost for as long as Understory is on the App Store, exactly as if you had paid for it, and it comes back on a new phone through Already bought. The offer has no cash value and cannot be exchanged or transferred. We may end it before 1,000 redemptions; anything already redeemed stays yours. We would love to hear what to make better (email welcome@myspencer.ai with the subject "Founders feedback: Understory"), but feedback is never a condition of the offer. Nothing in this offer limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
Refunds
A one-time purchase has no billing to cancel, so there is nothing to unsubscribe from. If you want a refund, that is Apple's to give: use reportaproblem.apple.com. We do not process payments and cannot refund one on Apple's behalf, but do write to us if something has gone wrong. This does not limit your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
Your record is yours
Everything you write belongs to you. We claim no licence over it, we do not have a copy, and we could not publish, analyse or sell it if we wanted to. There is nothing on our side to reach. You can take it out at any time from Settings inside the app: a PDF to read and a file that can be brought back in.
The other side of that: if you delete the app without an export, and without a phone backup, and without a tree connected to somebody else, the record is gone. We cannot restore it, because we never had it. The privacy policy says exactly what is and is not kept.
What we ask of you
Use it for your own life and the lives of the people and animals in it. Do not attempt to break the relay, flood it, or use it to move anything other than your own sealed years. It exists to carry a few kilobytes once a year between phones that have paired, and nothing else.
Trees answered with someone else
When a tree is shared, each phone keeps its own complete copy. That has a consequence worth stating plainly: a year you answer together is held by everyone on that tree, and you cannot take it off their phone afterwards. Somebody leaving, deleting the app, or putting the tree away does not remove it from anybody else, and nobody leaving can remove it from yours. Answer a shared tree the way you would say something out loud in the room.
Only people who scanned each other's code in person can share a tree. Do not use one to send anything unlawful, threatening or abusive. If something on a shared tree is a problem, either of you can tap Stop sharing this tree at the foot of its trunk at any time, and Report a problem with a shared answer in the same place reaches us at welcome@myspencer.ai. We read every report.
What we do not promise
Understory is a record of your own making, not a service with an uptime commitment. To the extent the law allows, it is provided "as is" and "as available", without any promise that it will be uninterrupted, free of faults, or suited to a particular purpose. The relay that carries years between paired phones may be unavailable at times; when it is, every phone still holds its own complete record.
To the extent the law allows, we may change, suspend or discontinue Understory, the relay, or any part of either, at our discretion.
Limits on our responsibility
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for:
- any decision you make, or anything you do, based on Understory or on what is written in it;
- indirect or consequential loss, or loss of profit, opportunity or goodwill;
- loss of data, including a record lost with a phone, a deleted app, or an export you did not keep. Your record lives only on your devices, so keeping a copy is yours to do;
- services run by other people, including Apple, the App Store, iCloud backups and RevenueCat;
- Understory, the relay, or any part of either being unavailable, interrupted or discontinued.
To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything to do with Understory is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for Understory in the twelve months before the claim, or AUD $50.
Nothing here limits rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot be contracted out of, and the limits above apply only as far as those laws permit. If a consumer guarantee applies, it applies.
If something goes wrong, talk to us first
Before making any claim, please write to us at the address above and tell us what happened. We will look at it and try to put it right. This step costs you nothing and takes away no right you have, and it does not commit us to any payment.
Children
Understory is not built for children to buy or set up on their own. A household tree is meant to be answered with everyone in the room, children included, by the adult whose phone it is.
Apple and the App Store
Understory comes from Apple's App Store, so these points apply as well:
- These terms are between you and us, not Apple. We, not Apple, are responsible for Understory and its content.
- You may use Understory on Apple devices you own or control, as the App Store's Usage Rules allow. The licence is personal and cannot be transferred.
- Apple has no duty to provide maintenance or support for Understory. Support is ours, at the address above.
- If Understory fails to meet a warranty that applies to it, you can tell Apple, and Apple may refund the price you paid for it. As far as the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for Understory.
- Apple is not responsible for any claim about Understory, including product liability claims, claims that it fails to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, consumer protection or privacy claims, or claims that it infringes someone else's intellectual property. Those are ours to deal with, as these terms set out.
- You confirm that you are not in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a terrorist-supporting country, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and can enforce them against you.
If these terms change
The date at the top is the version marker. A change that matters, meaning anything about what you are buying or what happens to your record, will be said plainly on this page and noted in the app or its release notes before it takes effect, rather than folded quietly into a paragraph. A change applies from the day it takes effect and does not reach back to anything that happened before it.
Which law applies
The law of Victoria, Australia, and the courts of Victoria can hear any dispute about these terms. If you live somewhere else, you keep the protections your local law gives you, including the right to use your own courts where that law allows it.
If part of this does not hold
If a court finds any part of these terms cannot be enforced, that part is cut back only as far as it has to be, and the rest still applies.