Third party photo app developer here. You're right, it's crazy that it's basically all or nothing.

Apple actually has a great API for selecting a single photo in a privacy-respecting way which does not give the developer access to the library at all. [0] But oddly, there is no corresponding API for safely saving or updating a photo in the library. So if your app involves editing a photo, you can't use this API.

The only option you're left with is to request photo library access with that scary dialog.

If the user selects the limited access option, it's not just confusing—it's a prohibitively bad user experience. If the user snaps a new photo and wants to edit it in my app, they have to tap a "Select more photos" button in my app, find the photo in the picker, close the picker, and then select the photo again in my UI.

Personally, I evaluate full access on a developer-by-developer basis. Indie app developers are highly unlikely to nefariously scan your entire photo library, as they lack any incentive or motivation to do so. So I give apps like Darkroom or Halide full access.

Meta, on the other hand, has every incentive to scan my whole library, and I assume they would. So even though it makes posting to Instagram much more painful, I selected limited photo library access for Instagram.

Apple really needs to introduce a safe way for developers to access just the photos/videos users select, and then update those assets.

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/photosui/photospic...

This post really nails it. The fact that access to a user photo is an all or nothing game and the most basic operations require full access is a huge problem in Apple’s ecosystem. Web browsers are able to easily let a 3rd party upload a file without giving access to every single file on your computer. I’m sure there are some reasons why it is not so simple on iOS but it can be done and the current setup is really bad.