Press & Media Kit — EmberPaws

Boilerplate description

The short, paste-anywhere paragraph for your article, podcast notes, or newsletter intro.

Press boilerplate — feel free to copy verbatim

EmberPaws is a private, indie daily care app for dogs on iPhone. It tracks weight, medications, vaccinations, walks, feeding, stool, skin, and eye health entirely on-device and in the owner's own private iCloud — never on EmberPaws servers, because EmberPaws has none.

The app features the Ember Score (a deterministic 0–100 daily wellness number), the Vet Report (one-tap shareable health summary), Walking Club (tappable iMessage walk invites), Sitter Mode (time-bounded handoff to a sitter via Apple's private CKShare), and Family Sharing (household members on the same dog records). There are no accounts, no subscriptions, no advertising, and no third-party tracking SDKs.

EmberPaws was built solo in Nova Scotia, Canada, originally for the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever community and now used across breeds. Free on the App Store. iPhone, iOS 17+.

Key facts

App name EmberPaws

Platform iPhone (iOS 17.0+)

Price Free — no subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads

Current version 1.2.2 (Sitter Mode)

App Store apps.apple.com/app/id6765977630

Website www.emberpaws.ca

Origin Built solo in Nova Scotia, Canada

Architecture On-device + private CloudKit (Apple). No EmberPaws servers.

Data collection None. No analytics SDKs, no third-party trackers, no advertising IDs.

Founding community Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers

Languages English (Canadian)

Press contact [email protected]

The short version of the story

EmberPaws started with a single Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Ember — affectionately "LittleM" — and the realization that most pet apps treat a dog's records as their product. EmberPaws was built the opposite way: a focused tool that keeps a dog's whole story on the owner's iPhone and in their own private iCloud, with no servers, no accounts, and no analytics on the developer side.

The founding community was the Nova Scotia Toller world — a tight-knit breed group of about 150 owners. The early features (the Ember Score, Health Hub, Walking Club) were shaped by their feedback. Version 1.2 introduced Walking Club and Family Sharing; version 1.2.2 (the current release) adds Sitter Mode — a time-bounded handoff to a temporary dog sitter via Apple's private CKShare, with automatic cleanup when the sit ends.

The app is iPhone-only, free, with no subscription, no in-app purchases, no advertising, and zero third-party data collection. EmberPaws runs on Apple's frameworks alone: SwiftUI, SwiftData, CloudKit, HealthKit, EventKit, WeatherKit, and UserNotifications.

"Most pet apps treat your dog's records as their product. EmberPaws treats them as yours."

Talking points

Angles you might cover. Pick whichever matches your audience.

Privacy-by-architecture

EmberPaws has no backend by design. Records live on the user's iPhone and in their own private CloudKit (Apple's per-user encrypted iCloud zone). There is no analytics SDK, no crash reporter beyond Apple's defaults, no third-party data flow. The "no tracking" promise is structural — there's no infrastructure on the developer side that could violate it.

Sitter Mode and the future of CKShare

Most apps use Apple's CKShare for one-way "here's my document" invitations. EmberPaws uses it for bidirectional sync inside a dedicated CloudKit zone that auto-deletes when the share ends — a pattern that fits dog-sitting, child-care, elder-care, plant-care, or any time-bounded handoff. The technical writeup is at /sitter-mode.

Anti-AI design (deterministic Ember Score)

The Ember Score is a transparent 0–100 daily wellness number computed from six weighted inputs (medications, weight, stool, skin, walks, feeding). It is not an AI model. The formula is fully documented at /ember-score. The deliberate non-AI choice is an explicit pushback against "your pet's wellness, calculated by an opaque model" — a category of feature this audience increasingly distrusts.

Indie / no-subscription positioning

Free download. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no premium tier, no advertising. Costs are intentionally close to zero — no servers to run, no analytics infrastructure. The model exists; it's just countercultural in 2026.

The Nova Scotia / Toller community angle

EmberPaws began as a tool for a single breed community (Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers, ~150 owners in a private Facebook group) and grew breed-agnostic from there. The "build for a small group that truly loves it" arc is a story in itself.

Medications: the strictest data category

Medications never sync to any public CloudKit DB — that's a structural rule with no toggle. For owner-controlled share surfaces (Vet Report, Sitter Info Sheet, Sitter Mode), there's an explicit per-surface "Include medications" toggle that defaults off. Household members on Family Sharing see meds automatically because dosing requires it. The boundary is documented at /privacy.

Downloadable assets

Right-click any image and "Save As," or use the download buttons. All assets are royalty-free for editorial use.

App icon

App icon — 1024×1024 PNG

For headlines, hero images, social cards Download PNG ↓

App icon — 512×512 PNG

For body images, smaller embeds Download PNG ↓

App icon — 192×192 PNG

For inline thumbnails Download PNG ↓

App screenshots

Dashboard

Ember Score · Quick log · Upcoming Download PNG ↓

Health Hub

Every health category in one view Download PNG ↓

Settings

Dogs · Preferences · Integrations Download PNG ↓

Dog Profile

Identity · Vet · Trail badges Download PNG ↓

Walking Club

Organize · Join · RSVP Download PNG ↓

Trails

Pin · Check in · Earn badges Download PNG ↓

Sitter Info Sheet

One-tap PDF for sitters Download PNG ↓

Heat Warnings

WeatherKit-driven advisory Download PNG ↓

Feature mockups — Sitter Mode (new in 1.2.2)

Owner schedule form

Setting up a sit, picking dates and the meds toggle Download PNG ↓

EmberPaws Sitter Mode — owner dashboard with logged events

Owner dashboard, mid-sit

Logged meals, walks, and meds flowing back Download PNG ↓

Feature mockups — Walking Club

Walking Club — organizer

Planning a walk and sharing the invite Download PNG ↓

Walking Club — RSVP

Friend taps the link, RSVPs in-app Download PNG ↓

Deeper reading

Each of EmberPaws' marquee features has a deep-dive page with the architecture, the workflow, and a feature-specific FAQ:

→ /sitter-mode — Time-bounded CKShare handoff
→ /walking-club — Tappable iMessage walk invites
→ /family-sharing — Household-wide dog records
→ /ember-score — The deterministic 0–100 wellness formula
→ /privacy — Full privacy architecture, every data flow documented
→ /faq — 35 owner questions answered
→ /about — Origin story and design values

If you're interviewing

A few questions that tend to draw out the more interesting threads, in case you'd rather not start cold:

What does "no backend" actually mean in practice, and how does CloudKit make it possible?
Why is the Ember Score a fixed formula rather than an ML model? What's the trade-off?
Sitter Mode uses CKShare differently than most apps — what's the pattern, and where else could it apply?
How does the no-subscription model stay sustainable for an indie iOS developer?
The app started inside a single breed community (Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers). What did building for ~150 specific dog owners teach you that "build for everyone" wouldn't have?
Medications follow a stricter rule than any other data category. Why that boundary, and how is it enforced?
What's the hardest part of running an iOS app with no server visibility — no analytics, no crash dashboard, no usage reports?

Press contact

Questions, interview requests, asset requests, fact-checks. We read every email and respond within 24 hours.

[email protected]

Typical response time: under 24 hours, often the same day.