In validation · demand check before any code or store fees

Strip Photo Metadata and Watermark Sensitive Images On-Device

PhotoVeil is a planned local-first app, iOS first with Android to follow from the same codebase. The concrete case: a landlord, a platform, or a buyer asks for a photo of your ID card or a document — that photo quietly carries your GPS location, device, and timestamp, and once sent it can be re-shared for anything. PhotoVeil would clean the metadata and stamp a purpose watermark on-device, before the photo goes anywhere. It is not built yet. This page exists to answer one question first: do enough people want batch photo-metadata cleaning that runs entirely on their own phone — no upload, no account, no tracking — to justify building it and paying the app-store fees? If yes, it gets built. If not, it doesn't.

Why this shape

Photos routinely carry GPS coordinates, device model, and timestamps. Online "EXIF remover" websites ask you to upload the very photos you are trying to protect — an on-device tool removes that contradiction.
The local-first, one-time-purchase model has worked for independent apps in adjacent categories: developers of single-purpose local apps have publicly reported first-year sales in the low thousands of copies at $3.99–$9.99 price points (developer self-reports, 2019–2020). That proves the model can exist, not that this app will sell.
A concrete everyday case: sending a photo of an ID card, a contract, or a payslip to a landlord, a platform, or a stranger. A purpose watermark ("for XX verification only") plus stripped metadata is a small, specific protection people currently improvise with markup tools.

Planned capabilities (none of this exists yet)

Batch-remove EXIF/GPS/device metadata from selected photos, entirely on-device — no upload, no server, no analytics
A "what this photo reveals" view before cleaning: location, device, time, software
Optional purpose watermark for ID or sensitive photos before sharing
Batch HEIC → JPEG/WebP conversion
Free tier (planned): single-photo cleaning. Lifetime unlock (planned): batch processing, watermarking, conversion

This page promises nothing that is not written above. Features, if the product is built, will follow what registrants actually ask for.

Who this is for

People who post or send photos and do not want their home location embedded in them
Second-hand sellers, photographers, and anyone who shares ID or document photos
If you never share photos, or your platform already strips everything to your satisfaction, you do not need this

Indicative price (not a live price — nothing is for sale, no payment is taken)

$9.99 one-time lifetime unlock

Registering is just sending one email — no payment, no pre-order, no commitment to buy. Please say how you handle photo privacy today, and whether you are on iOS or Android: those answers decide both whether this gets built and which platform ships first.

This app is not built yet. Development and the app-store developer fees will only be committed if 30 people join this waitlist by October 31, 2026; if that goal isn't met, the project will be dropped and every registrant notified by email. The price and threshold are test parameters for this validation, not market conclusions.

Questions

Can I use it now?
No. Nothing has been built; this page is the whole thing.

Does registering mean I have to buy it?
No. It only means "notify me if it launches". Decide when there is a real product to look at.

Why iOS first, and why the wait?
An iOS developer account costs $99/year and Android adds its own registration and testing period. Spending that before anyone has asked for the app would be backwards; registrations come first, fees second.

Why not just use a free website?
You can — but the photo has to be uploaded to someone else's server first, which is exactly the exposure this idea exists to avoid.