HOWIE — TERMS
21 September 2026
Using Howie means accepting what follows. It is short, because there is not much to govern: a user writes, Howie stores, and the user can erase all of it.
PUBLISHER
Howie is published by Studio Vaxa, a French company (SASU) based at 47 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, registered at the Paris trade registry under number 130 725 781. Contact: howie [at] studiovaxa [dot] com or the contact form.
WHAT HOWIE IS
A private journal. Users write text, record voice notes, add photos, and file them in notebooks, under tags.
Howie shares nothing between users. There is no feed, no public profile, and nobody a note is shown to.
HOWIE FREE AND HOWIE ONE
Howie Free is the app on a phone, free of charge. Notes, photos and recordings stay on that phone. They are not sent anywhere, and they go with it if it is lost or the app is removed. Howie Free holds one notebook and one photo per note.
Howie One is a paid subscription. It saves the whole journal online, encrypted, and opens it on any phone and in a web browser. It allows several notebooks and up to ten photos per note. The price is shown in the app before anything is bought.
The web version of Howie is available to One subscribers only.
THE SUBSCRIPTION
Howie One is bought and billed through Apple or Google, never through Studio Vaxa. It renews on its own, monthly or yearly depending on the plan chosen, and is charged to the Apple or Google account at the end of each period unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before. It can be managed and cancelled at any time in that account's subscription settings. Refunds follow Apple's or Google's own rules.
When Howie One ends, nothing is saved online any more. The app first brings the photos and recordings back to the phone, and, if there are several notebooks, asks which to keep: they are merged into one, and the others are deleted with their notes, after confirmation. The account stays open, and the subscription can be taken again at any time.
ACCOUNTS
Howie can be used without an account. Creating one, with an email address, with Google, or with Apple, is what holds a subscription and makes the journal reachable from elsewhere.
Access to that email address has to be kept: it is what opens the account, and the key to the notes is derived from it. That is what stops anyone else reading them, and it means Studio Vaxa cannot open them either.
Howie is not intended for anyone under 15.
WHAT USERS WRITE IS THEIRS
Notes, recordings and photos remain the property of whoever wrote them. Studio Vaxa claims no rights over them, does not use them, and shows them to nobody.
They are not read either. What leaves the phone is encrypted on it first, with a key Studio Vaxa does not have. What happens to it exactly is described in the privacy policy.
WHAT USERS AGREE NOT TO DO
Storing illegal content in Howie. Trying to reach someone else's notes, or to get around the service's protections. Automating a use of it that would degrade the service for others.
TRANSCRIPTION
A voice note is transcribed automatically, and the text is added to the note. On a phone, the phone's own speech recognition is used first; when it cannot, and there is an account, the recording goes through an outside provider, named in the privacy policy.
It is automatic, so it is imperfect. It gets things wrong, particularly proper nouns and anything recorded somewhere noisy. The original recording stays attached to the note, and the text can be corrected by hand.
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED AS IT IS
Howie comes with no guarantee of availability, performance, or freedom from error.
Studio Vaxa does what is needed to keep notes safe, but cannot guarantee against every loss. Howie is a journal, not a safe: it is built to hold what someone thinks and feels, which is exactly what it should hold. Records that cannot be afforded to be lost, such as documents, passwords, or anything with a legal life of its own, belong somewhere built to guarantee that. The "Export my data" button, in the “My account” tab, produces a copy of everything at any time.
Studio Vaxa is not liable for indirect damages arising from use of the service, nor for content lost to an outage, a mistaken action, the loss of a phone holding a Howie Free journal, or the loss of access to the account's email address.
DELETION AND ENDINGS
An account can be deleted at any time from the “My account” tab. Everything goes, immediately and finally. Deleting the account does not cancel the subscription with Apple or Google: that is done in their settings.
An account that breaches the section above may be suspended, with notice where that is possible.
CHANGES
Howie keeps changing. Features may appear, change, or go away.
These terms may change too. The date at the top says which version this is, and anything significant is flagged inside the app.
GOVERNING LAW
These terms are governed by French law. In the event of a dispute, an amicable solution will be sought before any action.