FirstPass Terms and Third-Party Notices

These Terms apply to FirstPass and its related app and server-side features. By using FirstPass, you agree to these Terms. You must be at least 13 and legally able to agree to them.

If you downloaded FirstPass from the Apple App Store, Apple’s Standard End User License Agreement also applies. These Terms add app-specific notices and rules and do not replace Apple’s standard license.

What FirstPass Does

FirstPass helps you read, discover, search, save, organize, triage, annotate, export, and share scholarly papers and related information.

Features may include titles, authors, abstracts, categories, links, PDFs or HTML versions, citation data, Local Briefs, Guided Skim, context explanations, rankings, related-paper suggestions, personal paper connections, saved searches, Radar, smart folders, author follows, highlights, notes, an open-paper switcher, offline reading, iCloud sync, and other reading and discovery tools.

FirstPass is not a publisher, journal, archive, peer-review service, academic institution, or source of medical, legal, financial, safety, engineering, academic, or other professional advice.

Third-Party Sources

FirstPass uses scholarly information from third-party sources, including arXiv and OpenAlex, and may link to arXiv or ar5iv pages, PDFs, HTML pages, DOI pages, publisher pages, or other external resources.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. We are grateful for arXiv’s open repository and OpenAlex’s open scholarly data.

FirstPass is not affiliated with, sponsored by, approved by, or endorsed by arXiv, Cornell University, OpenAlex, OurResearch, Apple, Google, any publisher, university, author, journal, conference, or other third party unless we explicitly say otherwise.

Third-party data may be incomplete, delayed, changed, removed, misclassified, or inaccurate.

Paper and AI Content May Be Wrong

FirstPass is meant to help you find and make a first pass through papers faster. It does not replace reading the original paper.

Local Briefs, Guided Skim, context explanations, rankings, recommendations, tags, citations, related-paper suggestions, personal paper connections, metadata, links, and other generated or processed content may be wrong, incomplete, misleading, or out of date.

You are responsible for checking original sources before relying on anything shown by FirstPass. Do not cite, publish, submit, or rely on generated or processed content without independently checking the original source.

AI Model Terms and Notices

FirstPass uses a modified Google Gemma 3 model for on-device Local Briefs. The model has been converted, quantized, and fine-tuned for FirstPass. Google does not sponsor or endorse FirstPass.

Notice: Gemma is provided under and subject to the Gemma Terms of Use found at ai.google.dev/gemma/terms.

The Gemma Terms of Use and Gemma Prohibited Use Policy are incorporated into these Terms for your use of Gemma-powered features. You may not use, encourage, or permit use of those features for any purpose prohibited by those documents or by applicable law.

On supported devices, some context explanations use Apple’s on-device Foundation Models framework. Your use of Apple-provided models and system features is also subject to applicable Apple terms and platform requirements.

Papers, PDFs, Exports, and Rights

Third-party papers, PDFs, abstracts, metadata, figures, names, marks, logos, and external content belong to their respective owners and may be subject to their own licenses, copyright terms, privacy policies, and usage rules.

FirstPass may link to, locally cache, annotate, or export paper content to support reading and user-requested workflows. That does not give you permission to copy, redistribute, publish, submit, or reuse third-party content beyond what the applicable license, law, or rights holder allows.

You are responsible for the content you choose to save, annotate, share, or export and for ensuring that your use of it is lawful and respects third-party rights.

Acceptable Use

You may not misuse FirstPass or its related services.

Do not scrape, overload, attack, disrupt, bypass limits, interfere with security controls, or use FirstPass to violate third-party terms, copyrights, trademarks, database rights, privacy rights, publicity rights, model-use restrictions, or other legal rights.

You may not reverse engineer FirstPass except to the extent applicable law expressly permits despite this restriction.

We may restrict or suspend access if we reasonably believe FirstPass or its related services are being misused or these Terms have been violated.

Free 14-Day Plus Trial

Eligible users may receive one free 14-day Plus trial. The trial begins only after you deliberately request a Plus feature and FirstPass confirms eligibility through iCloud. It requires internet access and an available iCloud account.

The trial does not require payment, does not become a subscription, and does not renew or charge you when it ends. At the end of the trial, FirstPass returns to Free access unless you separately purchase a subscription.

Under the current trial behavior, starting the trial enables iCloud sync for supported FirstPass data. You can turn content sync off later in Settings, while the separate private CloudKit eligibility record may still be used to validate the one-time trial.

Trial eligibility is intended to be one-time and may be coordinated across your devices through a private CloudKit record. Attempts to reset, evade, or repeat trial eligibility are prohibited.

Trial availability may depend on device compatibility, iCloud and network availability, accurate system time, and the integrity of local and CloudKit records. If eligibility cannot be verified, FirstPass may decline to start or continue trial access.

Purchases and Subscriptions

FirstPass may offer optional paid features, auto-renewable subscriptions, or one-time purchases through Apple’s in-app purchase system.

We will describe the offering before purchase. The exact features included in Free, trial, and paid versions may change over time.

If you purchase an auto-renewable subscription, it renews automatically unless you cancel according to Apple’s App Store rules. You can manage or cancel subscriptions through your Apple Account subscription settings.

Billing, renewal, cancellation, refunds, and payment processing are handled by Apple. We do not control Apple’s payment processing or refund decisions.

Access to paid features may depend on purchase status, device compatibility, server and iCloud availability, third-party data availability, and compliance with these Terms.

Availability and Changes

FirstPass is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.

We do not promise that FirstPass, its related services, third-party data, links, files, model downloads, sync, generated content, recommendations, or other features will be accurate, current, uninterrupted, secure, or available.

We may update, change, suspend, limit, or discontinue any part of FirstPass at any time, subject to applicable law and Apple’s rules.

Privacy

Your use of FirstPass is also governed by our Privacy Policy.

If these Terms conflict with the Privacy Policy about personal information, the Privacy Policy controls for that issue.

Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If a change is material, we will update the effective date and provide notice in the app or through another reasonable method. Continued use after the updated Terms take effect means you accept them, to the extent permitted by law.

Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@getfirstpass.app

Developer / Provider: Fernando Flores