Offline-first birding for iOS
Effective date: 2026-08-05 Applies to: Open Perch for iOS, version 0.1.0 and later
The precise version follows.
These Terms are an agreement between you and Miadad Rashid (“we”, “us”) covering your use of the Open Perch application. By installing or using the app you accept them. If you do not accept them, do not use the app.
Open Perch is distributed through the Apple App Store and your use is also subject to Apple’s terms. Where Apple’s App Store terms require something these Terms do not cover, Apple’s terms apply to that subject.
Open Perch is an offline-first birding companion: a species reference, a personal sightings log, a map of where you have been birding, and an on-device tool that suggests species from bird calls.
It is a hobbyist reference tool. It is not a scientific instrument, a survey platform, or a source of authoritative taxonomic or conservation data.
You own what you create. Your observations, notes, and the locations you record belong to you. We make no claim to them and take no licence over them.
In the current version, your content never leaves your device, so there is nothing for us to license, host, or moderate.
Looking ahead. A future version may offer optional community features — sharing sightings, or contributing photographs to a shared species guide. If you choose to use such a feature, you would grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to store, display, and distribute the content you submit, for the purpose of operating that feature. We are telling you now so it is not a surprise later. That licence would apply only to content you actively choose to submit, would be opt-in, and would never apply retroactively to observations you logged privately before then. You would be able to withdraw content you had submitted.
The app’s sound identification uses BirdNET, a machine-learning model from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Chemnitz University of Technology.
Its output is a ranked suggestion, not an identification. It is wrong sometimes — confidently so. Accuracy varies with background noise, distance, wind, overlapping calls, region, and species. The app deliberately presents results as “possible matches” for this reason.
Do not rely on it as a sole source where accuracy matters: scientific recording, regulatory or permitting decisions, conservation reporting, or anything with legal or financial consequence. Verify against a field guide, a recording, or a person who knows.
The BirdNET model is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 and is used under that licence, with attribution shown in the app.
Use Open Perch lawfully and decently. Specifically, do not:
We may stop providing the app, or any part of it, to anyone who materially breaks these rules.
The app uses OpenStreetMap for place names and map imagery. Those services are operated by the OpenStreetMap Foundation under its own terms and privacy policy, which we do not control. Map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License.
We provide the app on a best-effort basis. We may change, suspend, or discontinue it, or any feature of it, at any time. We are not obliged to provide updates, support, or continued availability, and there is no service-level commitment of any kind.
Features that depend on OpenStreetMap require a network connection and may fail if those services are unavailable. Everything else is designed to work offline.
The app is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, that identifications or species information will be accurate or complete, or that defects will be corrected.
Some jurisdictions do not permit the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits rights you have under consumer protection law that cannot be waived by agreement.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising out of your use of or inability to use the app — including reliance on an identification suggestion or on species information — whether or not we were advised such damages were possible.
Where liability cannot be excluded, our total aggregate liability is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for the app in the twelve months preceding the claim, or ten US dollars.
Nothing in these Terms excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.
Your safety is your responsibility. Birding takes people to remote places, difficult terrain, water, and bad weather, often while looking upward through binoculars rather than at the ground. Assess your own risk.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes will be brought in the courts of that jurisdiction.
If you are a consumer resident elsewhere, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory consumer law in your country of residence, nor of the right to bring proceedings there where local law grants it.
We may update these Terms. Material changes will be reflected in a new effective date and announced in the app. Continuing to use the app after a change means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not, stop using the app and delete it.
If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the rest remain in force and the unenforceable provision is applied to the maximum extent permitted.
support@openperch.org — or open a public issue at https://github.com/encode-reality/open-perch/issues.