Terms of Use

📋 Acceptance of Terms

By downloading, installing, or using Mealio ("the App") or visiting this website, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. If you do not agree to these Terms, please refrain from using the App.

These Terms apply to the iOS application distributed via the Apple App Store. Apple Inc. is not a party to these Terms and holds no obligation to furnish maintenance or support services for the App.

🍳 AI Culinary & Food Safety Disclaimer

Mealio uses state-of-the-art multimodal artificial intelligence (Google Gemini 3.5 Flash) to generate recipes, recommend meals, provide real-time cooking assistance, and estimate nutritional values. By using Mealio, you explicitly acknowledge and agree:

• Food Safety & Doneness: Visual assessments provided by the AI Copilot (e.g., verifying whether steak, poultry, or pork is thoroughly cooked) are supplementary estimations only. They must never replace the use of a calibrated food thermometer or sound personal judgment. Poultry and pork must always reach safe internal temperatures before consumption.
• Allergies & Health Restrictions: You bear sole responsibility for verifying all ingredient suggestions against your individual food allergies, intolerances, medical conditions, and dietary requirements.
• Non-Medical Nutrition Approximations: Caloric, macronutrient, and nutritional data provided in the weekly meal planner are AI approximations. They do not constitute medical, dietetic, or nutritional advice.
• Culinary Guidance: AI-generated instructions are creative culinary recommendations. Always exercise standard kitchen safety regarding knives, hot oil, open flames, and electrical cookware.

🎁 Daily Quota & Rewarded Video Unlocks

To balance server resources while keeping Mealio free and accessible for all home cooks, Mealio utilizes a fair-use daily quota:

• Users receive complimentary daily recipe generations and vision check allowances every 24 hours.
• When your daily quota has been reached, you may optionally choose to watch an opt-in Google AdMob Rewarded Video Ad to unlock additional generation tokens.
• Rewarded video viewing is completely voluntary. No forced video ads will interrupt your active cooking session or recipe viewing.

✅ Permitted Use & Community Rules

You may use Mealio for personal, non-commercial culinary enjoyment and weekly meal planning. You agree to:

• Use the App only for lawful culinary and dietary purposes.
• Not attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, or extract proprietary algorithms from the application binary.
• Not use automated scripts, bots, or unauthorized scrapers to circumvent daily quota limits or spam our AI gateway.
• Not input unlawful, hazardous, or malicious prompts into the AI model.

🧠 Intellectual Property

Mealio, its logos, trademarks, visual design tokens, and original software codebase are the intellectual property of the developer and protected under international copyright and trademark law.

All recipes and meal calendars stored locally in your device's private library remain your personal property. We make no intellectual property claim to your personal culinary collections.

📱 In-App Purchases & StoreKit

If optional token packs or premium features are introduced, all purchases will be processed through Apple's official App Store in-app purchase mechanism. All billing, cancellations, and refunds are governed by Apple's Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.

⚠️ Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Mealio and its creators disclaim liability for any indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages resulting from:

• Preparation or consumption of food made using AI-generated recipes or guidance.
• Allergic reactions or foodborne illnesses arising from ingredient substitutions or undercooked foods.
• Service interruptions or latency caused by upstream cloud infrastructure or AI providers.
• Accidental local data loss resulting from device hardware failure or unbacked iOS reinstalls.

The application is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis without warranties of any kind.

🔄 Modifications to Terms

We reserve the right to amend these Terms as Mealio evolves. The updated terms become effective immediately upon posting to this URL. Continued use of the App following any update signifies your agreement to the modified Terms.

⚖️ Governing Law

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United States. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms shall be resolved through good-faith informal negotiation or binding arbitration.