But surely you can see that that's a stupid state of affairs?

The built-in Photos app is just a basic built-in photo viewer. So the user is not allowed to view their own damn photos without clicking through a bunch of permission prompts like they're running Windows Vista.

The app even comes from the same developer as the operating system. If you don't trust that developer to make an app that views your photos, why did you buy a phone that runs that operating system in the first place?!?

Where's the common sense?