Privacy
Effective August 14, 2026.
Above the Trees has no account, no advertising, no analytics, and no third party tracking. There is no server behind the app. Nothing you do in the app is collected, sold, or shared, because none of it reaches the developer.
Location
The app asks for your location only while it is open, and only after you tap Continue on the screen that explains why it is asking. The coordinate selects the nearest National Weather Service forecast grid. The app never requests background location and never tracks you continuously. Once the app leaves the screen, iOS stops giving it your location at all. What it keeps is the small forecast cache described below, and nothing more.
You never have to grant it. Tap Enter a ZIP code instead and the app uses the centre of that ZIP code's area, which is kept only on your phone; the only thing that reaches the National Weather Service is that area's coordinate. The forecast and the compass both work this way, so nothing about the app is held back for refusing the permission.
Motion and the compass
Turning the wind to face the way you are pointing needs the phone's compass, which reads its motion sensors: the magnetometer, the accelerometer, and the gyroscope. iOS does not ask about these, because they describe how the phone itself is being held rather than anything about you. They are used as they arrive, to work out which way the phone is pointed, and are never stored and never sent anywhere.
Turning a compass bearing into a true one needs to know roughly where on Earth you are, because magnetic north and true north differ by an amount that changes from place to place. The app works that out on your phone from the coordinate it already has, whether that came from the location permission or from the ZIP code you typed. Nothing is looked up over the network to do it.
What leaves your device
The app requests its forecast directly from the United States National Weather Service at api.weather.gov over HTTPS. That request necessarily reveals two things to that service: the coordinate being asked about, rounded to four decimal places, and the IP address the request comes from, as with any web request. No other service receives your location, and the app sends nothing else anywhere.
The National Weather Service is a United States government agency and handles those requests under its own policies.
What stays on your device
To avoid repeating requests, the app stores the last few forecast responses, one for each of up to nine forecast grid squares you have recently asked about, each with a coarse coordinate rounded to two decimal places and the time it was last used. This lives only on your device, is pushed out as newer grid squares replace it, and is removed entirely when the app is deleted.
Children
The app collects no personal information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, the revised version will be posted here with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions about privacy: [email protected].