For iPhone & iPad · iOS 26
Invoices, contracts, warranties and what’s in the fridge — snapped, understood automatically and remembered in time. The analysis runs entirely on your device, your data lives in your iCloud. No server, no account, no subscription.
Good morning, Jordi family
The problem
The native document scanner detects edges, straightens the perspective and delivers clean pages. Food packs get their own live viewfinder that reads the best-before date while you’re still aiming. The app then pulls out issuer, date, amount, deadlines and expiry dates by itself.
Cancellation deadlines 90/30/7 days ahead. Warranties 30/7 days ahead. Food 3/1/0 days ahead. As a local notification at 8:00 am — even without internet.
Text recognition and field extraction run on-device with Apple frameworks. There is no FamilyVault server anything could be sent to.
Kitchen table, 7:42 am. One photo — and the receipt is filed, tagged and stored with its warranty period.
How it works
For paper, VisionKit detects the edges automatically, corrects the perspective and captures several contract pages in one go. Packs are curved and printed small — so FamilyVault has its own live viewfinder: it shows the best-before date and barcode as chips while you aim, you zoom with two fingers, tap to focus and press the shutter yourself. No auto-shutter that fires before the image is sharp.
Vision reads the text (de-CH, de-DE, en-US), and Apple’s Foundation Models extract the fields from it — issuer, date, amount, term, notice period, best-before date. For the best-before date the app weighs every date on the pack: a label like “best before” counts, a packing date doesn’t — and the model’s suggestion only stands once it matches the print. For the product name, font size and food terms count; labels like “ORGANIC”, serving suggestions, nutrition facts and manufacturer addresses are dropped. On trilingual Swiss packs the app picks the name in your iPhone’s language. All local, no network.
You always see what was recognised and can correct any field. Only your “Save” writes to the database — and immediately schedules the matching reminders.
Four areas
Each area has its own logic — its own fields, its own deadlines, its own traffic-light colours. Shared tags and the global search tie them together.
Invoices, receipts, anything on paper. FamilyVault recognises issuer, date, amount and currency, adds a short AI summary and keeps the full OCR text for search.
Scan several pages, put them in order, then analyse. From the term and notice period FamilyVault works out the next cancellation date — and keeps an eye on it.
Snap the receipt, done: product, brand, purchase date and warranty period show up in the list as a time-remaining badge. Green, yellow, red — at a glance.
Hold the pack in the live viewfinder — name, brand, quantity, barcode and best-before date are captured, the name even on trilingual packs in your language, and the line from the print sits under the date as proof. Freeze something and the app calculates the new date from your shelf-life rules.
Reminders
No emails, no messenger bot, no push from someone else’s server: FamilyVault schedules its notifications in advance right on the device and delivers them at the time you choose — 8:00 am by default.
🔴 Expires today
Cream cheese (Migros)
🟠 Warranty expires in 7 days
Coffee machine (Jura) — consider extending
🔔 Cancellation deadline approaching
Liability Zurich – can be cancelled until Sep 30, 2026 (in 30 days)
🟡 Expires soon
Cream 35 % (Emmi)
Privacy
Most scanner apps send your photo to a cloud AI. FamilyVault doesn’t. Text recognition and field extraction happen on your iPhone’s processor — offline, no API key, no per-page bill.
There is no FamilyVault server. Nothing to hack, nothing to leak, nothing that could be switched off.
Sync through the private CloudKit database of your Apple account — inside Apple’s infrastructure, unreadable to us.
No sign-up, no password, no newsletter. Your device is your identity.
Optional app lock. Whoever holds your iPhone still doesn’t see your contracts.
No analytics SDKs, no advertising IDs, no third-party libraries. Phase 1 uses Apple frameworks only.
Everything sits in a local database along with the original images — no format lock-in, no subscription that cuts off access.
Search
When you save, every item gets a pre-computed search index from title, brand, issuer, category, tags, summary and raw OCR text — accent-insensitive. Several terms are combined with AND, results are grouped by area.
Under the hood
Swift 6 and SwiftUI, a single universal target for iPhone and iPad, zero third-party dependencies.
Without Apple Intelligence a rule-based extractor takes over automatically — the app stays usable, recognition is just more conservative.
Questions
No. There is no server that costs money to run, so there is no subscription either. The app works with your iCloud storage.
iPhone and iPad with iOS/iPadOS 26 or later. Automatic field extraction uses Apple Intelligence; on devices without Apple Intelligence the rule-based fallback takes over.
In the first version FamilyVault syncs through the private iCloud database — so across all devices signed in with your Apple ID. Real sharing across several Apple IDs is planned for a later stage.
Nothing is saved without your confirmation. Every scan ends on a screen with all fields ready to correct; uncertain values are highlighted.
Prints on packs are small, curved and often smudged. That’s why the live viewfinder shows which date it is currently reading — zoom in until the chip is right, and only then press the shutter. If the photo is too blurry, the app tells you before recognition. In the form, “Rescan date” captures the date again at any time, with the line from the print shown underneath as proof — and a date that couldn’t be confirmed against the print is explicitly marked for checking.
A pack mixes name, brand, labels, slogans and nutrition facts, often in three languages. FamilyVault therefore checks the model’s suggestion against the print: if the name is missing, doesn’t appear on the pack or is really the brand, the app takes the best-matching line, usually the largest type. On multilingual packs the name in your iPhone’s language wins; if it isn’t there, the print stays as it is — nothing gets translated. Name and brand can be edited on the confirmation screen like any other field.
Completely. Scanning, recognition, search and reminders need no network. The internet is only used for iCloud sync between your devices.
English and German from day one, including localised notification texts. More languages can be added later without touching the rest of the app.
FamilyVault is now on the App Store — free for iPhone and iPad. No account, no subscription, no ads.
