What this is, and what to tell people about it

What Ripple is

A calm, touch-responsive visual surface. Tap it, and a wave spreads outward through a grid of cells. There are twelve surfaces, each with its own pace, geometry and colour.

It is silent, has no goals, no scores, no streaks and no time limits. It never tells the user they have finished, or that they should come back tomorrow.

What Ripple is not

• A medical device, or a treatment for anything.
• A therapy programme, or a curriculum.
• A game. There is nothing to win and no way to fail.
• An assessment or monitoring tool. It keeps no record of the individual using it and produces no report about them.

Ripple makes no clinical claims. It sits in the general wellness space, alongside apps like Calm and Headspace, rather than presenting itself as an intervention. If a colleague asks whether it is evidence-based, the honest answer is that the design draws on published work about sensory regulation and restorative attention, but Ripple itself has not been trialled and does not claim outcomes.

How it is organised

Rather than a menu of effects, the twelve surfaces are grouped by the state someone arrives in. This maps onto how most regulation frameworks already work, without borrowing anyone's terminology.

Four Quick Starts sit above these for when choosing is itself too much: I feel tired, I feel overwhelmed, I feel calm, I feel worried. Each opens a surface directly. The wording is deliberately non-prescriptive - the app never tells anyone what to do about a feeling.

Using it in a classroom, clinic or care setting

What to tell a parent or a headteacher about data

This is usually the question that decides whether an app gets used, so here it is in full.

• No account, and no personal data. No name, email, date of birth or password is ever asked for or stored.
• No advertising of any kind, and no advertising SDKs.
• No tracking across other apps or websites. Ripple shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt because it has nothing to ask for.
• Nothing a child draws is transmitted. Touches and patterns stay on the device.
• Anonymous usage and crash data is collected - which experiences get opened, whether the app crashed, how fast it runs - through Google Firebase and RevenueCat. It cannot identify anyone, and it is never used to profile anyone.

Ripple is rated 4+ and is suitable for young children, but it is not listed in Apple's Kids Category. That category restricts the third-party services an app may use, and Ripple sends anonymous usage and crash data to Firebase. It is a decision about how the app is listed, not about who it suits. The full detail is on the privacy page, which is written to be forwarded.

Accessibility

Ripple responds to Reduce Motion, Dim Flashing Lights, Increase Contrast, Reduce Transparency and Dynamic Type without being configured, and is built for VoiceOver. There is no flashing content. The accessibility page lists exactly what each setting changes, and is straight about what does not work yet. None of it has been tested by someone who relies on these tools daily, which is a real limit rather than a formality.

Cost

Four of the twelve surfaces are free permanently - one from each group, chosen because they are good rather than because they are samples. The remaining eight are a single £1.99 purchase, once, with no subscription. It works with Family Sharing. There is no bulk or volume purchasing: on a shared or managed device the unlock is bought once per Apple Account, or the four free surfaces are used as they are. If you are planning a rollout across several devices, email me before you buy anything.