They charge for the mobile app. I believe it is a one-time fee of $8. It’s a really fair value in my opinion. They even upgraded to 2.0 and let everyone so so for free. No regrets on my end supporting them.
Regarding photos, which app do you use as gallery? Because as we can see in app store that app (apple) records a lot of data about photos.
As alternative I'm using cryptomator. I created a folder in which I move every singles photos from native photos app and manage it through native files app (records few data unlike photos app), but as you can imagine it's not so handy
Honestly, I’ve been stuck on Apple Photos, but turned on ADP (Advanced Data Protection). ente.io is the only other option I found somewhat adequate, but I haven’t pulled the trigger to switch to it just yet. I guess I should add that to my list!
Do you have any specific info on what Apple records in regards to the photos app? Would love to read more.