Acknowledgements
The short version
- When your child snaps a find, WonderSpy checks it on the phone using three published research models. We didn't invent them, and we're grateful to the people who did.
- The app is built on open-source software from Google's Firebase project and the libraries it depends on.
- This page credits them all, and reproduces the notices their licences ask us to include.
Contents
1. On-device recognition models
These models run entirely on your child's iPhone. Photos are not uploaded to use them. We use the Core ML versions that Apple publishes in its Core ML model gallery.
YOLOv3 — finding objects in a photo
- What it does in WonderSpy: spots everyday objects (a cup, a bicycle, a bird) and where they sit in the picture.
- Authors: Joseph Redmon and Ali Farhadi, “YOLOv3: An Incremental Improvement” (2018).
- Licence: YOLO Licence, version 2, which places Darknet and YOLO in the public domain.
- Model file: YOLOv3Int8LUT (Core ML).
DETR (ResNet-50) — separating the scene
- What it does in WonderSpy: divides a photo into regions (sky, grass, a flower, a person) so each part can be looked at on its own.
- Authors: Nicolas Carion, Francisco Massa, Gabriel Synnaeve, Nicolas Usunier, Alexander Kirillov and Sergey Zagoruyko, “End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers” (2020). Original model: facebook/detr-resnet-50-panoptic.
- Licence: Apache License 2.0.
- Model file: DETRResnet50SemanticSegmentationF16 (Core ML).
FastViT (MA36) — recognising what something is
- What it does in WonderSpy: names what's in each part of the photo, from a thousand everyday categories.
- Authors: Pavan Kumar Anasosalu Vasu, James Gabriel, Jeff Zhu, Oncel Tuzel and Anurag Ranjan (Apple), “FastViT: A Fast Hybrid Vision Transformer using Structural Reparameterization”, ICCV 2023.
- Licence: Apple's ml-fastvit licence. Its notice is reproduced in section 3.
- Model file: FastViTMA36F16 (Core ML).
On iPhones that support Apple Intelligence, WonderSpy can also ask Apple's on-device foundation model for a second look. That model is part of iOS, is provided by Apple under the iOS software licence, and is not distributed by us.
2. Open-source software
WonderSpy uses the Firebase Apple SDK for its anonymous Explorer ID, saving progress, remote settings and diagnostics. The SDK and the open-source libraries it depends on are listed below.
| Component | Copyright | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Firebase Apple SDK | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| App Check | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| GoogleUtilities | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| GoogleDataTransport | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| GTMSessionFetcher | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| Promises | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| Interop for Google SDKs | Google LLC | Apache 2.0 |
| Abseil | The Abseil Authors | Apache 2.0 |
| gRPC | 2014 gRPC authors | Apache 2.0 |
| LevelDB | 2011 The LevelDB Authors | BSD 3-Clause (notice below) |
| nanopb | 2011 Petteri Aimonen | zlib |
The full text of the Apache License 2.0 is at apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0. Software under it is provided “as is”, without warranties or conditions of any kind.
This website is set in Baloo 2 and Nunito, both under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
3. Licence notices
FastViT (ml-fastvit)
Copyright (C) 2023 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved.
IMPORTANT: This Apple software is supplied to you by Apple
Inc. ("Apple") in consideration of your agreement to the following
terms, and your use, installation, modification or redistribution of
this Apple software constitutes acceptance of these terms. If you do
not agree with these terms, please do not use, install, modify or
redistribute this Apple software.
In consideration of your agreement to abide by the following terms, and
subject to these terms, Apple grants you a personal, non-exclusive
license, under Apple's copyrights in this original Apple software (the
"Apple Software"), to use, reproduce, modify and redistribute the Apple
Software, with or without modifications, in source and/or binary forms;
provided that if you redistribute the Apple Software in its entirety and
without modifications, you must retain this notice and the following
text and disclaimers in all such redistributions of the Apple Software.
Neither the name, trademarks, service marks or logos of Apple Inc. may
be used to endorse or promote products derived from the Apple Software
without specific prior written permission from Apple. Except as
expressly stated in this notice, no other rights or licenses, express or
implied, are granted by Apple herein, including but not limited to any
patent rights that may be infringed by your derivative works or by other
works in which the Apple Software may be incorporated.
The Apple Software is provided by Apple on an "AS IS" basis. APPLE
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR ITS USE AND
OPERATION ALONE OR IN COMBINATION WITH YOUR PRODUCTS.
IN NO EVENT SHALL APPLE BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE, REPRODUCTION,
MODIFICATION AND/OR DISTRIBUTION OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE, HOWEVER CAUSED
AND WHETHER UNDER THEORY OF CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE),
STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF APPLE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
LevelDB
Copyright (c) 2011 The LevelDB Authors. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
4. Artwork, music and sound
Pebble Scout, the mission illustrations, the music and the sound effects were made for WonderSpy with AI-assisted creative tools, under licences that permit their use in the app. They are © 2026 WonderSpy and may not be reused without permission.
5. Trademarks
Apple, iPhone, Core ML and Apple Intelligence are trademarks of Apple Inc. Firebase is a trademark of Google LLC. Naming a project on this page means we use its work. It does not mean its authors endorse WonderSpy.
Spotted something we've missed or got wrong? If you're an author of any work listed here, or think we've left one out, write to support@wonderspy.app and we'll fix it.