Michika — Terms of Service

1. About these terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Jen Hao Yeh, an individual operating the Michika service from Taiwan (R.O.C.) ("Michika", "we", "us"), for the Michika iOS and CarPlay application and related services (the "Service"). You can reach us at support@michika.app. By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. What Michika is — and what it is not

Michika is an AI companion and navigation assistant. The character you travel with is an artificial-intelligence system, not a human being. Her personality and what she says are computer-generated. AI-generated output is probabilistic: it can be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or simply wrong, and it may present fiction as if it were fact.

Conversation is not currently available, and the app does not use the microphone. If conversation is offered in a later version, the Privacy Policy will be updated before it is.

3. Navigation and driving safety

• You are always the driver. The Service provides route suggestions, estimates, and spoken guidance as a convenience only. It is not a substitute for your own attention, judgment, or compliance with traffic laws, signs, signals, and road conditions.
• Map data, routes, traffic estimates, and arrival times come from third-party providers and from imperfect sensors; they may be wrong, outdated, or unavailable. If guidance conflicts with what you see on the road, trust the road.
• Do not interact with the screen while driving except as permitted by law. Set your destination before departing; let passengers operate the app where possible.
• Passenger-only features. Some iPhone features — including destination search while CarPlay is connected — are provided for passengers and for use before you drive. A destination sent from the iPhone is never started automatically: the driver must confirm it on the car display. Text entry is limited while the vehicle is moving.
• To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any loss arising from reliance on navigation output, including wrong routes, delays, traffic violations, or accidents.

4. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 13 years old (or the minimum age of digital consent where you live) to use the Service. Accounts are created with Sign in with Apple; you are responsible for the security of your Apple Account and your device.

You can delete your Michika account at any time in the app — on the iPhone under Account ▸ Delete account, and from the Michika screen in CarPlay. Revoking Sign in with Apple for Michika in your Apple Account settings signs you out and blocks access; it does not delete your account or your data. To delete, sign in again and use Delete account in the app, or email us. Deletion is processed as described in the Privacy Policy, which also explains the small marker we keep afterwards so a free trial cannot be repeated.

5. Subscriptions, trials, and billing

• Paid plans (currently Pro, monthly or yearly) are sold exclusively as auto-renewable subscriptions through Apple's App Store. Prices are shown in the app at the point of purchase.
• Subscriptions renew automatically each period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Manage or cancel at any time in Settings ▸ Apple Account ▸ Subscriptions, or in the App Store. Cancelling stops the next renewal and leaves your benefits running until the end of the period you have already paid for; the app shows that end date. Neither deleting the app nor deleting your Michika account cancels a subscription.
• The free trial is granted by us, not by Apple. There is no App Store introductory offer, no payment method is taken, and nothing converts into a paid subscription. The trial runs for a limited period and a limited number of completed trips, whichever ends first, and includes the current Pro features. The current length and trip allowance are shown in the app before you start the trial and on your plan screen while it runs, and those figures are the ones that apply to you. When it ends there is nothing to cancel. Free navigation continues with classic Shinano and standard guidance; Pro is required for the additional characters, looks and street-name guidance. The trial is one per account — its start date and trip count are recorded against your Sign in with Apple identifier and are kept if you delete your account, so that deleting and re-creating an account does not grant a second trial. We may change or withdraw the trial at any time.
• Billing, receipts, and refunds are handled by Apple under Apple's terms (reportaproblem.apple.com); we never see or store your payment card details. When Apple tells us a purchase has been refunded or revoked, the paid benefits end immediately rather than at the end of the period.
• Free includes classic Shinano on screen, Apple Maps navigation and standard turn-by-turn guidance. One voice per language is selectable; other public voices can be previewed. Pro, available monthly or yearly, includes all released characters, outfits and colourways, the online character library, all public voices, guidance that names the streets, traffic-aware routing and expanded search. The price and billing period are shown before purchase. Max is retained for existing subscribers: it includes every Pro feature and will add conversation when that feature launches, at their existing price. Conversation is not currently available. Existing Max subscribers can choose Pro in Apple's subscription management screen; we never switch a subscription automatically. Usage caps exist to keep the Service healthy and may be adjusted; we will not silently remove core paid functionality mid-period.
• We may grant complimentary or promotional access to a plan at our discretion, and withdraw it at any time.

6. Acceptable use

• Do not use the Service for anything unlawful, or to generate or solicit content that is illegal where you live.
• Do not attempt to extract, decompile, copy, or redistribute the app's character models, voices, artwork, or other assets, or circumvent their technical protection. The characters and voices are licensed works, not free assets.
• Do not reverse-engineer, probe, overload, scrape, or abuse the Service, its APIs, or its usage limits, and do not resell access.
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.

7. Content and intellectual property

The Service — including the app, the Michika brand, and the characters — is protected by intellectual-property laws. The characters are licensed works, used with their creators' permission. We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app for its intended purpose.

You keep whatever rights you hold in the messages you send. Where conversation features are enabled for your account, you grant us the licence needed to operate them, as described in the Privacy Policy. We also keep a history of your routes and of how you use the Service, as described there. We do not use your conversations or your route history to train general-purpose AI models.

8. Availability

The Service depends on third-party platforms and service providers and is provided without uptime guarantees. Features may change, and some may be temporarily unavailable. We may update these Terms; material changes will be announced in the app or by notice on this page, and continued use after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance.

9. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIMS ARISING FROM THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US THROUGH THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM. WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions or liability limits; where that is the case, the above applies only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits mandatory consumer rights under applicable law (including the laws of Taiwan, R.O.C.).

10. Apple

These Terms are between you and us, not Apple. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app and is not responsible for addressing any claims relating to it (including product liability, regulatory compliance, or IP claims). Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you. You represent that you are not in a country subject to a U.S. government embargo and are not on any U.S. government restricted-party list.

11. Governing law and contact

These Terms are governed by the laws of Taiwan (R.O.C.), without prejudice to mandatory consumer protections of your place of residence. Disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of the Taiwan Taipei District Court unless mandatory law provides otherwise.

Questions: support@michika.app