Apple wants to gatekeep the feature for "legitimate" uses. If it was just another permission, random flashlight apps (as the joke goes) would ask for the permission and _n_% of people would just blindly accept it. Then, of course, Apple would get blamed for allowing random flashlight apps to track people's location. Of course this could all be done via the regular app review process, but Apple seems to have decided on a few permissions they want to keep super locked down (CarPlay is another, to avoid blame for when someone crashes while using some CarPlay app).
