About MingCard
MingCard is an entertainment app inspired by three traditions of classical Chinese metaphysics — BaZi (八字, the Four Pillars of Destiny), face-shape analysis (面相), and the I Ching (易經). Each of these has been used for centuries to think about character, timing, and choice. MingCard brings them together inside a single mobile interface and presents the result as a Destiny Card — a clean, designed summary you can keep, reflect on, and (if you want) share.
The reading itself happens on your device. Nothing about you — not your birth date, not your photo, not your reading history — is uploaded to a server. There is no server. There is no advertising, no analytics, and no tracking. This is unusual for an app in this category, and it is deliberate.
MingCard is designed to be used as entertainment and reference, not as professional advice. It is the kind of app you open when you are curious, want a fresh angle on a question, or simply enjoy the visual language of traditional Chinese symbol systems.
Key Features
Three Traditions, One Reading
Each Destiny Card draws on three distinct systems:
- BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny). Calculated from your birth date, time, and (optionally) location. BaZi reads the year, month, day, and hour of your birth as four “pillars” of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, traditionally used to discuss temperament, life rhythm, and the interactions of the Five Elements (五行) in your chart.
- Face-Shape Analysis (面相). An optional reading based on your face shape — for example oval, round, square, heart, oblong — together with the corresponding Five Element label. The classification is high-level and categorical, the same way a stylist might describe a face shape; it is not a biometric identification of you as an individual.
- The I Ching (易經). A divination system going back more than three thousand years, organized around 64 hexagrams. MingCard incorporates the I Ching as part of the reading, so each Destiny Card sits inside a broader interpretive frame rather than relying on a single technique.
On-Device Face Reading
If you use the Face Reading feature, MingCard captures one still image, runs Google ML Kit face detection on your device to read generic facial landmarks (eye positions, feature proportions), and then deletes the photo immediately when analysis finishes. The only thing stored is a categorical face-shape label and its Five Element label.
There is no biometric template. There is no faceprint. The image never leaves your device, never reaches a server we operate (there is no such server), and is never backed up to iCloud or Google.
Destiny Cards
The output of a reading is a Destiny Card — a single composed image that summarizes what the reading found. Cards are designed to be readable on their own and shareable through your device’s normal share sheet: when you tap Share, your operating system hands the card to an app you pick (Messages, Mail, LINE, social networks, etc.). MingCard itself does not upload the card anywhere.
Privacy-First, By Construction
Most apps in this category send your birth data and photo to a remote server for processing. MingCard does not. The architectural choices behind this are visible in the privacy policy:
- No backend server. Calculations happen on your device.
- No analytics, no tracking, no advertising, no crash reporting. None of these SDKs are integrated.
- No personal information collected. No name, no email, no phone number, no contacts, no calendar, no location history, no health data, no usage analytics.
- Your data stays local. Your birth data, reading history, and the categorical face-shape label all live in the App’s private storage area on your device. Clear them in settings, or by uninstalling.
MingCard Pro
MingCard offers an optional auto-renewing subscription, MingCard Pro, which unlocks the App’s Pro features. Three plan lengths are available — weekly, monthly, and annual — and the exact price is shown in the App, in your local currency, before you confirm any purchase. There is no free trial.
Payment is handled entirely by Apple or Google. Subscription status is managed by RevenueCat using an opaque, pseudonymous identifier that does not, by itself, identify you. We do not see, receive, or store your payment information at any point.
You can cancel any time in your Apple ID or Google account settings (uninstalling the App does not cancel the subscription). Full terms — including auto-renewal, refunds, EU 14-day right of withdrawal, and restore-purchases — are documented in the Terms of Service.
How a Reading Works
- Enter your birth data. Birth date and birth time are required for BaZi; birth location is optional. This stays on your device.
- (Optional) Take a face photo. If you want to include face-shape analysis, the App captures one still image, runs the on-device model, and immediately deletes the photo. Only the categorical label is kept.
- MingCard composes the Destiny Card. The card draws on the three systems described above and presents the result as a single designed image.
- Read, save, share, or discard. The card lives on your device. You can browse past readings in your history, share a card via your system share sheet, or clear your data at any time.
Why On-Device Matters
For most app categories, “on-device” is a nice-to-have. For destiny and fortune apps, it is a different category of decision: the inputs are your birth data and your face. Sending those off to a remote service means a permanent record of them now exists somewhere outside your control — usually attached to a marketing profile, often shared with ad networks.
MingCard takes the opposite approach. Because there is no server, there is no server-side database of your information that could be breached, sold, or repurposed. The classical calculations that BaZi and I Ching require are math; the modern part — face-shape detection — is a model that fits on a phone. There is no technical reason any of this needs to leave your device, and so it does not.
Target Audience
MingCard is for anyone curious about traditional Chinese metaphysics — whether you grew up around it, are returning to it, or are encountering it for the first time — and who wants a clean, modern way to explore those systems on a phone. It is also for anyone who has hesitated to use a destiny app because of how much personal data those apps typically demand, and who would prefer an app that simply does not collect any.
Use it as a daily reflection, as a conversation piece, as something to think with — but not as a substitute for professional advice. For important decisions about health, money, law, or relationships, consult a qualified professional.
Technology
MingCard is built with Flutter and runs on both iOS and Android from a single codebase. Face-shape analysis is powered by Google ML Kit, which runs entirely on your device. RevenueCat handles subscription state via a pseudonymous identifier; payment processing is done by Apple (App Store) or Google (Play). No analytics, advertising, crash-reporting, or attribution SDKs are integrated — and we do not operate any servers ourselves.
A full, line-item description of what data the App touches and what it does not is available in the privacy policy.
Get Started
MingCard is currently in development and will be released on iOS and Android. Once it goes live, download links will appear here. Until then, you can read the combined Privacy Policy & Terms of Service — including the auto-renewal terms for MingCard Pro and the full disclosure of what data the App collects (which is very little).
Developed by Steven Huang at Atlantis Kid. For entertainment and reference only — not professional advice.