What can the HowBridge app do on iPhone and iPad? How do I download it and set up notifications?

How do I download the HowBridge app? Which iPhone or iPad do I need?

The app is listed on the App Store as “好運器” (HowBridge), with the subtitle “China-to-Taiwan consolidation · tariffs and freight at a glance”, in the “Shopping” category, rated 4+, free, with no in-app purchases. Open apps.apple.com/tw/app/id6805425552 directly, or search the App Store for “好運器” and make sure the developer is Hao Yun Ci Information Limited Company. The app download section at the bottom of our home page also shows a QR code; scan it with the iPhone camera to open the App Store page. Installing and using it for the first time takes just three steps:

What does each of the app's five tabs do?

The tab bar at the bottom (top on iPad) has five fixed slots: Home | Bills | Shipments | HScode | Me. Tabs you have not opened yet do not connect in advance, so a cold start makes no extra API calls; when you are offline, an offline banner appears at the top.

How do I forecast parcels and track shipments in the app?

A forecast is “telling the warehouse in advance that this tracking number is yours”; shipment status is the state of the parcel at each stop after it enters the warehouse. Both come from the same data source as the website's consolidation page.

Which notifications does the app push? What is the Live Activity on the Lock Screen?

Once you log in and allow notifications, this device becomes a push target. HowBridge notifications use a “single-channel chain”: if you have the app installed and the push is delivered successfully, only the app is notified; LINE is used only if there is no app; email only if there is no LINE either. So for notifications that travel this chain (warehouse arrival, customs release, signed-for, EZ WAY reminders), members with the app will not receive a duplicate on LINE — that is not a missed message. The events currently pushed to the app are:

How do I consolidate and ship parcels inside the app? Are the rules the same as on the website?

The rules are exactly the same, because the app and the website call the same backend: any error the website blocks, the app blocks too; the only difference is the interface. The flow is: Shipments tab “Warehouse” → tick parcels in the To consolidate list (tap anywhere on a card to select it; you can search by tracking number, filter by checked status and switch warehouse) → see “N selected · Est. billable weight” → tap “Create shipment” and fill in the form → submit.

How do I use HScode tariff search and the freight estimate? Can I use them without logging in?

Every search feature on the HScode tab works without logging in, and the data comes from the same source as the website's tariff search.

How do I view bills and pay inside the app?

The Bills tab has four sub-tabs: Unpaid bills, Paid history, Tax documents and HCT collection; the app automatically lands on the most relevant one based on the records under your name. For each bill you can switch currency, download the tax bill and declaration (single file or ZIP, preview in the app then share) and view the customs-stage timeline; “Tax documents” also lists freight e-invoices (invoice number, carrier, status, proof-copy download).

What are the login options? How do Face ID, passkeys and account deletion work?

The app account is the same member account as the website; wherever you log in, you see the same parcels and bills.

What is different in the iPad version?

The same app switches automatically to a tablet layout on iPad (iPad supported since 15 September 2026) and requires iPadOS 18.0 or later:

Which permissions does the app request and which data does it collect?

Under Article 8 of the Personal Data Protection Act, when personal data is collected, the purpose, categories, manner of use and the data subject's rights must be disclosed; the “App Privacy” label on the App Store page and this site's privacy policy are the formal statements. Below are the permissions and data the app actually touches:

Why am I not getting notifications? Why doesn't the Live Activity or widget appear?

Almost every cause of missing notifications is in the table below; work through it from top to bottom:

What are the app's current limitations?

The following reflects App 1.9 as of 20 September 2026; this page will be updated as future versions ship:

Glossary

Push notification

A notification delivered to the device by the Apple Push Notification service (APNs); HowBridge registers this device as a push target after you log in and allow notifications, and unregisters it when you log out.

Live Activities

An iOS Lock Screen feature that keeps an ongoing event visible on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. HowBridge uses it to show the three nodes customs → delivery → signed for, switching to an alert when the parcel is held.

Dynamic Island

The interactive area at the top of the screen on iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max and every model from iPhone 15 onwards (except the 16e and 17e), where Live Activities are shown in compact form.

Widget

A small panel placed on the Home Screen or Lock Screen. HowBridge offers four, including the number of parcels to forecast and the progress of the latest master shipment; the data is refreshed when you open the app.

Passkey

A login method that replaces the password with Face ID/Touch ID; the key is bound to the 0523.tw domain and synced by iCloud Keychain, so a phishing site cannot steal it.

Face ID quick login

A HowBridge app feature: your account password is stored in the device Keychain and you are logged in automatically after a face scan; only for password accounts. Face data is managed by iOS and the app cannot access it.

Sign in with Apple

Apple's login method, which lets you hide your real email; HowBridge completes it through the 0523.tw authorisation page, and after login it is the same member account as on the website.

Universal Links

When you tap a 0523.tw bill, shipment or tariff URL, iOS opens the corresponding page in the HowBridge app directly instead of the browser.

Single-channel chain

This site's delivery principle for automatic notifications: app push → LINE → email, sent only to the first available channel so you don't receive the same thing three times.

Quiet hours

This site's notification policy: between 22:00 and 08:00 Taipei time, informational notifications such as parcel received, shipment status updates, customs release and parcel signed for are held and delivered in the morning; notifications that require action from you are not affected.

Warehouse code

The personal code at the end of the Shenzhen warehouse delivery address (for example “-H1644J库位”), which the warehouse uses to match parcels to your account; keep it intact when copying the address.

Tax+

One of this site's tax collection methods: when you submit a shipment, an estimated tax equal to the higher of “billable net weight in kg × NT$20” and “total goods value × 5%” is bundled into the freight, with a minimum of 1 kg; convenience-store pickup can only use this method, and it is not available to company declarants.

Simplified declaration and formal customs declaration

Under certain conditions, express consignments can clear customs on a simplified declaration form (this site uses a total goods value of NT$50,000 as the reminder threshold); formal customs declaration is filed on a regular import declaration, and in the app you can upload the packing list, commercial invoice and power of attorney for instant review.

EZ WAY “declaration matches”

The online customs-authorisation app “EZ WAY” built and operated by Trade-Van, one of the three authorisation methods (not mandated by law). After the customs broker pushes the declaration details, you check them and tap “declaration matches” to complete the authorisation; HowBridge sends an app push to remind you.

HScode (tariff code)

The 11-digit tariff code used to classify imported goods, which determines the duty rate and import regulations; the app's HScode tab lets you search, use AI classification and photo recognition without logging in.

Sources and limits of verification

The feature rules on this page were checked item by item against the App 1.9 code and the backend notification service (2026-09-20); store information is taken from the App Store and Google Play pages, iOS feature descriptions from Apple's official support and developer documentation, and legal provisions from the current text in the Laws & Regulations Database, supplemented by peer-reviewed literature explaining “why it is designed this way”.

Apple/Google official documents and legal basis

• Apple Support, “Download apps on your iPhone or iPad” (2026-02-05): “On your iPhone or iPad, open the App Store.” “Tap the price or the Get button.” “If you use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock your device, you will look at the device or touch the Home button to authenticate the download. You might need to enter your Apple Account password to complete the download.” See also “If you can't download or update apps on your iPhone or iPad”: “You might need to have a valid payment method on file, even if the app is available for free”.
• Apple Support, “How to create a new Apple Account” (2026-09-15) + “Change the country or region of your Apple Account” (2026-04-15): downloading apps requires an Apple Account; when creating one you “set your country or region and set up two-factor authentication”; the App Store storefront follows the account's region, and before changing it “you must spend your account balance and cancel your subscriptions”. The HowBridge app is published on the Taiwan App Store.
• iPhone User Guide, “iPhone models compatible with iOS 18”: iOS 18 supports iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, the iPhone 11 series, iPhone SE (2nd generation) and later up to the iPhone 16 series and 16e, 29 models in total; iPad User Guide, “iPad models compatible with iPadOS 18”: the oldest are iPad mini (5th generation), iPad (7th generation), iPad Air (3rd generation) and iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation)/12.9-inch (3rd generation). The current iOS 27 compatible models start from iPhone 11 — iPhone XR/XS, which stop at iOS 18, can still install the HowBridge app. The update path is in “How to download iOS 18”: “Settings” → “General” → “Software Update”.
• Apple Support, “Use notifications on your iPhone or iPad” (2026-09-17) + iPhone User Guide, “Change notification settings”: “Tap ‘Notifications’, then tap the app under ‘Notification Style’.” “Turn off notifications for an app: turn off ‘Allow Notifications’.” “To show notification content on the Lock Screen without unlocking the device… tap ‘Show Previews’, then select ‘Always’.”
• iPhone User Guide, “View and control Live Activities on the Lock Screen”: “You can view app activities on the Lock Screen to keep track of progress easily. For example, a navigation route in ‘Maps’, live sports updates in the Apple TV app, order updates in a food delivery app, and so on. These updates are called ‘Live Activities’.” “To change Live Activities settings, go to ‘Settings’, tap Apps, tap the app whose settings you want to change, then tap ‘Live Activities’.”
• iPhone User Guide, “View Live Activities in the Dynamic Island”: “When iPhone is unlocked, you can view notifications and Live Activities at any time in the Dynamic Island on the Home Screen or inside the app you are using”; the models with a Dynamic Island are iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max and every model from iPhone 15 onwards (except the 16e and 17e); “On iPhone 18 Pro models, the Dynamic Island can show up to three Live Activities at the same time.”
• iPhone User Guide, “Add, edit, and remove widgets on iPhone”: “Widgets let you see current information from an app at a glance”; “Touch and hold the background until the apps begin to jiggle… then tap ‘Add Widget’.” “You can tap a widget on the Home Screen, Lock Screen or in ‘StandBy’ to perform an action.”
• Apple Support, “What is Sign in with Apple?” (2026-05-07): “When you sign in for the first time, apps and websites can only ask for your name and email address to create your account.” “Sign in with Apple does not track you or profile your data as you use your favourite apps and websites.” “How to use Hide My Email with Sign in with Apple”: “Hide My Email generates a unique, random email address, and mail sent to this address is automatically forwarded to your personal email inbox.”
• Apple Support, “About the security of passkeys” (2024-09-27) + iPhone User Guide, “Sign in to websites and apps with passkeys”: “Unlike passwords, passkeys are resistant to phishing” “The server never obtains the content of the private key.” “Like passwords, passkeys are encrypted and stored in your ‘iCloud Keychain’, and no one (including Apple) can see them.” “Note: To use passkeys, ‘iCloud Keychain’ and two-factor authentication must both be turned on.” (Apple's Traditional Chinese pages use one Chinese term for passkeys while the Taiwan iOS interface commonly uses another; the Chinese version of this page follows the interface term and adds the English word “Passkey”.)
• Apple Support, “About Face ID advanced technology” (2024-12-17): “Face ID data does not leave your device and is never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else.” “Apps are notified only as to whether the authentication was successful. Apps cannot access Face ID data associated with the enrolled face.”
• Apple, “App Store Review Guidelines” 5.1.1 and 4.8: “If your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app.” “Apps may not require users to enter personal information to function, except when directly relevant to the core functionality of the app or required by law.”; 4.8 requires apps that use third-party or social login to also offer an equivalent login option that requests only name and email, allows the email to be hidden and does not track — Sign in with Apple is that option.
• Apple, “App Privacy Details”: “On each app's product page, users can learn about some of the data types the app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them.”; “Tracking” is defined as linking user or device data collected from the app with third-party data for targeted advertising or advertising measurement, or sharing it with data brokers. The HowBridge store page's privacy label has only “Data Linked to You” and notes “This information has not been verified by Apple”.
• Apple Developer, “Allowing apps and websites to link to your content”: “When users tap or click a universal link, the system redirects the link directly to your app without routing through the person's default web browser or your website.” “If the person hasn't installed your app, the system opens the URL in their default web browser”.
• App Store Taiwan, “好運器” (HowBridge) page (read on 2026-09-20): “Version 1.9” (2026-09-18), “Requires iOS 18.0 or later.” “iPad: Requires iPadOS 18.0 or later.”, size 46.9 MB, category Shopping, age rating 4+, free, languages “Chinese (Traditional) and 13 more”, seller Hao Yun Ci Information Limited Company; version history 1.1 (9 September) “Apple Pay payment added to the bill page”, 1.5/1.6 (15 September) “All-new iPad support”, 1.9 “Camera, Photos and Face ID permission descriptions and widget names completed in 14 languages”; “Ratings & Reviews: this app has not received enough ratings or reviews”.
• Google Play, “好運器 HowBridge” page (read on 2026-09-20): developer HowBridge Information Co., Ltd., updated 18 September 2026, version 1.0.17, requires Android 8.0 or later, category Shopping, rated 3+; Data safety “No data shared with third parties”, “Data is encrypted in transit”, “You can request that data be deleted”. Google Play Help, “Data safety”: “Developers use the ‘Data safety’ section to explain how their app handles data.”
• Personal Data Protection Act, Articles 8, 19, 20 and 27 (Laws & Regulations Database): Article 8 requires that when personal data is collected, the name of the entity, the purpose of collection, the categories of data, the period, territory, recipients and manner of use, the data subject's rights and the consequences of not providing the data be clearly disclosed; Article 19(1)(2) “where there is a contractual or quasi-contractual relationship with the data subject” and (5) “with the data subject's consent” are the conditions for collection by non-government entities; Article 20(2) and (3) require marketing to stop once the data subject objects and that the first marketing contact provide a way to object; Article 27 requires appropriate security measures. The amended provisions promulgated on 11 November 2025 (ROC year 114) take effect on a date to be set by the Executive Yuan; this page cites the provisions currently in force.
• Ministry of Digital Affairs, Administration for Digital Industries / Mobile Application Security Alliance, “Basic Security Standards for Mobile Applications” V1.5 (September 2024): “These standards are non-mandatory; their main purpose is to raise the basic security capabilities of mobile apps in Taiwan by introducing basic security concepts from the initial design stage”; they set requirements in seven areas: “mobile app release security”, “sensitive data protection”, “transaction resource control security”, “user identity authentication, authorisation and session management security”, “mobile app code security”, “server-side security management” and “server-side security testing”. “Basic Security Testing Criteria for Mobile Applications” V4.0: “Transmission of any data in plain text is prohibited”, “Check that the mobile app transmits data only over TLS 1.2 or later encryption protocols”, “The mobile app shall obtain the user's consent before collecting sensitive data”. The HowBridge app has not obtained the MAS mark; these standards are cited here only as background on Taiwan's app security requirements and do not mean the app has been submitted for or passed testing under them.
• Regulations Governing Customs Clearance for Air Express Consignments, Article 17 (amended 2026-02-23): customs authorisation may be given in one of three ways — in writing, through the Customs-Port-Trade Single Window, or through the identity verification platform (paragraph 1); “Where the customs authorisation has not been completed by one of the methods in the preceding paragraph and recorded in Customs' clearance information system, Customs may refuse to accept the declaration.” (paragraph 2, effective 2026-03-01). Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance, press release (2026-08-03): “The EZ Way app is only one of the customs authorisation methods; the public may, according to their own needs, choose a paper case-by-case authorisation or a long-term authorisation, and the regulations do not compel the public to use the EZ Way app”. So the app's EZ WAY reminder push is a reminder, not “no release unless you install it”.
• Customs Act, Article 49, paragraph 2 + Ministry of Finance announcement Tai-Cai-Guan-Zi No. 1061018778 of 7 September 2017: imported goods in the same consignment with a customs value of NT$2,000 or less are exempt from customs duty, VAT and commodity tax (except tobacco, alcohol and tariff-quota agricultural products), but this does not apply to frequent importers; Ministry of Finance order Tai-Cai-Guan-Zi No. 1061011007 of 26 May 2017: a taxpayer who uses duty-free release more than 6 times within a half-year is deemed frequent. This is the basis for the app's freight estimate only adding a note for NT$2,000 or below rather than automatically treating it as duty-free.
• TWNIC, “2025 Taiwan Internet Report” summary (surveyed 2025-07-28 to 09-01, 2,142 responses, aged 18 and over): “In mobile internet access, the mobile broadband penetration rate among Taiwan's population reached 87.12%; looking further at mobile network usage, 46.36% of the population currently use 4G and 40.76% use 5G.” Individual internet usage rate 88.75%; mobile-only 18.04%, mixed 68.03%. The report does not give an iOS/Android split.
• Ministry of Digital Affairs press release, “MODA publishes the 2025 Digital Access Survey Report” (2026-01-13): among internet users aged 12 and over, in the past three months 69.6% “searched for product or service information”, 51.0% used “mobile payment” and 44.7% “browsed or downloaded software (apps) other than games” (N=15,142, 2025-05-19 to 07-18). StatCounter mobile operating system traffic share, Taiwan (August 2026): iOS 60.17%, Android 39.82% — a third-party estimate from web traffic, not an official census, for background only.

Research literature: app adoption, notifications, Lock Screen information and login security

Frequently asked questions

Is the HowBridge app free? Are there in-app purchases?

Will it run on my iPhone? Which system version do I need?

Is the iPad version just an enlarged iPhone app?

After installing the app I stopped getting shipment notifications on LINE — is that normal?

When will I see the Live Activity on the Lock Screen?

What is different between consolidating in the app and on the website?

Can I use Apple Pay in the app?

Which features can I use without logging in?

Is Face ID login safe? Is my face uploaded?

How do I delete my account?

Does the app secretly read my clipboard?

Is there an app for Android phones too?

Further reading