Comment by glenjamin
I think in some cases (like WhatsApp) the better model exists and is available, but isn’t used by the app - possibly as a judge to get you to give it more permissions
On iOS Strava’s app is able to access a photo picker, and the app only gets the photos I actually pick
Meanwhile WhatsApp insists on using the model where it tries to access all photos, and I limit it to specific ones via the OS
The more fine grained “only allow access to select photos” was introduced in iOS 14 and before that your only option was to ask for permissions for all photos. Not to say devs shouldn’t have converted by now but just to say it is possible they just implemented it that way at the time and never got around to updating rather than they really want the broader access.